It Started With Revenge
by frostykitten
Summary: Sequel to A Tail Changes Everything. Hermione and Draco are back from the Burrow and find themselves unable to ignore each other the way they used to - quite the opposite in fact. They can't seem to get away from each other, whether they like it or not.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**A/N: This is the sequel to A Tail Changes Everything, school's staring soon, so this one won't be updated near as frequently as the first one, but I'll write them as fast as I can... If you've read the epilogue of A Tail Changes Everything, then you know how this one ends, it's everything in between I'm going to be filling in. I know the sequels are rarely as good as the originals... But I wasn't sure I was quite ready to be done with this story yet, so if you're worried about it ruining the first one, don't read it. Thanks for everyone who gave me their opinion on whether I should write this; more people thought I should than shouldn't, so here it is! What do you think?  
**

**~Frosty**

**Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, except the plot... And all of it will continue to not be mine for the rest of this story, so I'm going to stop with the disclaimers.**

Hermione Granger woke up and squinted irritably at the rustling coming from the far corner of her room. "Malfoy," she started crossly, "what the heck are you doing in my bedroom?" Hermione was happy that she was getting along better with Malfoy since their triumphant return from the Burrow, but not to the point that she wanted to wake up to him rustling... Was that a bag of muggle candy?

"I'm hiding from Potty and the Weasel, obviously."

Hermione frowned and ignored the juvenile nicknames for her best friends. "How did you even get in here?"

Malfoy pointed to her window, which was open a small crack - too small for him to have flown in on his broom. She snickered; he was so cute when he was an owl, and the fact that he couldn't talk made him so much more bearable. "Okay, so you can fly back out and hide in your own room."

Now it was Malfoy's turn to frown. "I can't, I was in the loo when they showed up and my bedroom door's open, have a heart Granger," he asked her with sad puppy eyes. Hermione was once again surprised by the person Malfoy could be when he decided that he didn't need to keep the mask up. "Think about it like this: it's the only time you'll ever have someone as attractive as me willingly in your bedroom," and sometimes he was the exact same as he was before.

Hermione gave him an evil grin, causing him to pale. "Now Granger, let's not do anything rash..." He held up his hands in a placating gesture, but it was too little too late.

She unlocked her door with her wand and let out a piercing scream. Harry and Ron heard and came bursting into the room just as Malfoy threw himself in the closet. "What's wrong?" They demanded at the same time once they had determined that there was nothing life threatening visible in the room.

Hermione stared into the corner that Draco had just vacated as if there was something horrifying there. "There was some kind of huge rodent there," she told her concerned friends. "It was just sitting there. Some kind of rat... Or ferret."

Ron and Harry gave her a strange look. "Hermione... Since when have you been afraid of mice?" Harry asked, looking at her worriedly.

"I'm sorry for scaring you two, it was just a _really_ obnoxious rodent, it startled me. You two go ahead, I'll meet you in the Great Hall." Harry and Ron gave her strange looks again, but they did what she told them and left the room.

"You can come out of the closet now, Malfoy," Hermione told him, amused.

Malfoy, however, was _not_ amused. "That wasn't necessary, Granger; I wasn't bothering you or anything," Malfoy complained as he came out of her closet.

Hermione sighed, if that was 'not bothering', she really didn't want to see what bothering was like – then again, she had worn a cupcake, so she probably already knew. "You can go back to your own room now Malfoy. Next time you're going to hide from someone, I suggest you stay an owl and hide in the owlery."

"There's owl droppings everywhere in there," he told her with a disgusted look as he walked out the door, presumably to head back to his own room. Hermione glared at the back of his green hair, but didn't bother commenting, she had to meet Harry and Ron in the Great Hall before they came looking for her – they meant well, but the overprotective older brother routine got old.

* * *

"I'm glad to see you three are getting along again," Ginny told Hermione as she sat down at the table with Harry and Ron. Hermione grinned happily at her; it had taken them a week, but they had finally sorted everything out after they saw the picture and realized that Mallory was actually Malfoy.

"We're dealing with it by shifting all the blame onto Malfoy," Harry said cheerfully while Ron nodded in agreement. Hermione rolled her eyes, if anyone had bothered to ask her, she'd tell them how everything was actually Fred and George's fault; but if the boys wanted to get back at Malfoy, then she was fine with it – he wasn't exactly innocent in it all. Besides, planning it kept them from focusing on the fact that she had snuck their enemy into one of the few places he never should have been able to go.

"You know you're not in the clear yet," Ginny reminded. "We're not the only ones who are going to be getting a copy of that picture. Dumbledore's keeping it to himself for now, but I have a feeling he's saving it for a special occasion or something."

Hermione groaned; with the way things had been going for her lately, Dumbledore would save it and use it on a newsletter sent out to all the parents of Hogwarts of something.

"We should get going, I'm going to be late for Arithmancy and you two have to get to Divination," Hermione told the others, glancing nervously at the headmaster seated at the front of the room as if she expected him to suddenly conjure posters of the Christmas picture around the Great Hall.

* * *

Potions had been an interesting experience for Hermione since she had come back from her Christmas vacation. She had always been good at potions, but Snape refused to give any of the Gryffindors anything higher than an E on principle. Hermione had been happily surprised to find that she had received an O on a potion earlier in the week. Either she was getting better at potions (doubtful) or Snape had decided that she wasn't so bad after all – she had a feeling it might have had something to do with the picture of the twins stuck to the ceiling as bats he currently kept on his dartboard.

"Hermione!" Ron whispered from the desk behind her, Snape was up at the front giving instructions on the potion they were to be making in class, so Ron appeared to think that it was all right for him to try and talk. Hermione ignored the loud redhead behind her, if Snape was going to start marking her fairly, then she was going to take advantage of the small boost her grades were going to get.

When she continued to ignore him, Ron started poking her. She turned around to glare at him. "What?" She demanded in a furious whisper, finally fed up with his behaviour.

Snape glanced over at the group of Gryffindors and scowled. "Mr. Weasley, ten points from Gryffindor and detention tonight. Meet me after class." He said menacingly. Hermione was smug; that's what Ron got for interrupting her during class, he probably wanted to copy off of her paper or something.

"Sir, I don't think that's fair, he wasn't even saying anything." Harry tried to defend his friend. Hermione suppressed a sigh; he had to know what was coming.

"You will join him in detention Mr. Potter; ten more points from Gryffindor and meet me after class as well."

The Slytherins on the other side of the room snickered, and Hermione couldn't help but be a little smug that Snape had decided she was worthy of fair treatment all of a sudden.

At the end of class, Hermione rushed off in a hurry; she didn't want to see the sullen looks Harry and Ron were probably giving her for somehow managing to get away with talking during potions.

"What's the rush Granger?" A voice asked from behind her as she was almost back to the Head's dormitory.

Hermione didn't even glance over her shoulder at Malfoy. "I'm trying to get into the dorm before Harry and Ron catch up to me..." She trailed off as she opened the portrait hole and felt a spell hit her.

Draco watched in horror as Hermione shrunk down and down until she was the size of a small child. Scratch that, Draco thought, she _was_ a small child.

Hermione looked all around her and eventually settled on Draco. She burst out crying in the way that only small children can.

Draco cringed; he still couldn't deal with her tears, even when she was a four year old. "You Gryffindors seem to get into all kinds of mishaps, it _can't_ be good for my health," he told her as he picked her up.

Hermione only looked at him with watery eyes and sniffled. "I want my mommy," she told him sadly.

Draco was at a loss for words, how do you tell a four year old that she can't have her mommy because she's actually 17 and attending a boarding school far far away from her parents? "Granger..." He started, only to be interrupted by high pitched screaming.

"Hermione!" The small girl insisted in her screeching little voice.

"Hermione," he started again, wincing a little at the strangeness of calling her by her first name, whether she was herself or not. "We're going to go to the hospital wing first, then you can see your mother." He was relying on Madam Pomfrey fixing her, so he wouldn't have to keep his promise.

"I'm not allowed to go places with strangers... What's your name?" She asked him on the trip down to the infirmary.

"Draco." She tilted her head to the side and contemplated him like he had seen her do to the things that both fascinated and annoyed her as a teenager.

"Kay, not strangers anymore," she told him happily. Draco sighed; apparently once you knew someone's first name you were no longer strangers. Granger's parents really should have taught her to be more careful around people she didn't know. He shook his head, it really wasn't any of his concern and he didn't care what possible danger Granger was in as a child.

"Mr. Malfoy, _please_ tell me that small child resembling Miss. Granger is actually some sort of illusion," Madam Pomfrey said when he walked into the hospital wing. Draco raised an eyebrow; she seemed awfully optimistic for someone who had to piece back together the victims of all kinds of spells and potions gone awry. She sighed and moved towards Draco to take the toddler from him, but Hermione resisted.

She took one look at the approaching mediwitch and yelled "NO!" She held on tighter to Draco and hid her face in his shoulder.

"Granger –"

"HERMIONE," she corrected him again, very loudly. Draco winced; she was still hiding her face right beside his poor ear.

"Hermione," he amended with an eye roll she couldn't see, "you need to let Madam Pomfrey look you over so she can fix you." She took her face out of his shoulder and looked from Draco to the waiting mediwitch.

"Can I... wear the hat?" She asked hopefully; pointing at the white hat that was resting on top of the mediwitch's hair. Draco snickered and Madam Pomfrey sighed and held it out for her to take.

Hermione happily put it on her head and then allowed herself to be handed over. Draco was ordered to wait in a chair by the door; he tried to protest that just because he'd found her didn't mean he had any responsibility towards her, but the mediwitch was having none of it.

He was mildly disturbed by the happy, childish giggling coming from behind the curtain; four or not, Granger was not supposed to sound that carefree and happy, it was too disturbing and went against everything he knew.

While he was waiting, Draco stared vacantly out the window while he thought. His eyes widened and then narrowed into a threatening glare as he realized what had most likely happened; the trap had been meant for _him_. It was probably another one of the stupid pranks Potter and Weasley had been pulling on him for days – though none of them had been successful yet, it seemed that Potter's talents lay in the evil fighting while Weasley's lay in the ... If any had been discovered yet, they would have been in the useless field.

Hermione came wandering happily around the curtain and crawled into Draco's lap while eating her lollipop, he picked her up and put her in the chair beside his – she seemed to have no respect for his person space when she was like this. "I'm afraid, Mr. Malfoy, that there's nothing I can do. You're going to have to wait until the spell wears off. It shouldn't take more than a week." Madam Pomfrey told Draco as she shooed both him and Hermione out of the infirmary.

Hermione stood beside him looking up at his face while he thought about what in the world he was supposed to do with this tiny Granger.

"Holy crap, it's a mini Mione!" A female voice said from across the hallway. Draco looked up and was ready to bang his head against the wall; it was the she-weasel and Blaise.

"Who are they?" Hermione asked Draco quietly as she slipped her hand in his and half hid behind him.

"You work fast mate, I didn't even know that you and Granger were even a couple yet," Blaise told him with fake awe in his voice.

"She not Granger's daughter, she's Granger."

"HERMIONE!" she corrected him once again.

Ginny and Blaise chuckled. "She's Hermione all right," Ginny said with a grin. "And she's sooo cute!" she exclaimed excitedly, moving forward as if to cuddle Hermione. Draco scowled at the both of them.

Hermione hid behind his legs to avoid the advancing Ginny. "The red hair lady scares me," she whispered, peeking around his legs at the she-weasel. Draco understood her fear; the girl could be _scary_ sometimes.

"You're her friend, _you_ can take her," He told the she-weasel, trying to pull Granger away from him, but she was hanging on to his leg with one arm and his hand with the other, he couldn't pry her off.

"No no no! Want to stay with Draco!" She was screeching.

When she started to cry, Draco gave up. "Fine, but you better not annoy me, and I'm not changing any diapers."

Tiny Hermione put her hands on her hips and told him in her best know-it-all voice, "I'm _four_ I haven't worn diapers for _years_." Blaise and Ginny watched in amusement and a bit of disbelief as a small Hermione lectured Draco on potty training. He gave up trying to get her to stop and just nodded along as she rambled on.

"Now there's something you don't see every day," Blaise said to Ginny as they watched the two walk towards the head dorms. Hermione had grabbed onto Draco's hand and insisted she was going to get lost if he made her let go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**A/N: I know this Hermione doesn't really speak or act like a four year old all the time, but it's easier this way. We can pretend she's a really smart four year old, kay? Also, don't worry, I'll get to the romance eventually... I'm just not sure how good I'll be at writing it. I'll try though! My humour changes with my moods, so being consistent can be a little difficult sometimes, so bear with me...**

**~Frosty**

"Okay Hermione, go play in the corner or something, I have homework," Draco told her once they were back in their common room. She just looked at him blankly.

"I don't have anything to play _with_," she complained. Draco looked around the room and realized that there really wasn't anything for a small child to have fun with unless she liked books – he should have thought of that before, she's small, but she's still Granger. He tried to think of a book that either of them owned with lots of pictures.

_Magical Monsters_ was the only thing he could find with any pictures, so he handed the book to her and set her up on the couch in front of the fire so he could get to his work.

Three hours later, Draco finally finished his last essay and looked over to see how Granger was doing. She was fast asleep, still holding her book. Draco would never admit it, but she was adorable when she was all small like that. He scooped her up and dropped her into her bed before getting into his own.

What felt like the second he closed his eyes, but was most likely an hour or so later, Draco was woken up by a small noise in his doorway. He grabbed his wand and pointed a lumos towards whatever it was and found Granger, once again crying and holding a pillow.

"When I have nightmares, mommy lets me sleep with her and daddy," she informed him. He scowled, he knew where this was going and it was _not _going to happen. She looked a little intimidated by the scowl, but bravely continued – she was a Gryffindor after all. "Can I sleep with you?"

Draco was ready to say no, but couldn't bring himself to do it. The nightmares were probably his fault; he hadn't remembered how disturbing some of the pictures were in the book he had given her until he took it from her to close it after she was asleep. She was all small and... pathetic looking hugging her pillow in fear with wide eyes.

"Fine," he said with a sigh, moving over so she had some room. She happily climbed in beside him and went right to sleep. Draco rolled his eyes, he never did this kind of thing as a child, father would never have allowed anything of the sort to happen.

The next time he woke up it was, thankfully, morning. He was less thankful about the person sitting on him. "Gr- Hermione, what are you doing?"

She gave him an evil grin. "I found these makeups in the bathroom when I was looking for toothpaste, so I made you pretty!" She chirped at him happily. Draco groaned, today was going to be a long day. He pushed her off of him and got out of bed, trudging to the mirror on the back of his door to see what the damage was.

It was pretty bad. She had chosen blue eye shadow for him and it clashed with his eyes _and_ his green hair. He was pretty sure that was mascara on his ear and she had drawn wobbly whiskers and a cat nose in eyeliner. "You're pretty Draco!" she insisted from behind him.

"Yes, I'm very pretty, but we need to think of everyone else. If I walk out there looking like this, no one would be able to concentrate on their schoolwork; they'd be too busy looking at how... pretty I am. It's difficult enough now for people to focus on work when I'm around looking like my gorgeous self." Hermione looked horrified, people might _fail_ their classes, and it would be partly her fault, good grades were as important as good dental hygiene.

She tackled his legs, but she was so small he didn't even stumble. "You have to take it off before you leave!" She demanded, punching him in the leg.

"It's too early for this," Draco sleepily muttered as he made his way to the bathroom sink to wash his face and get ready for classes.

When he came out of the shower, Hermione was sitting suspiciously quiet on the floor. "What have you done?" He asked her, dreading the answer.

She widened her eyes innocently and smiled at him. "I didn't do anything," she chirped happily at him, making him more and more suspicious by the second.

Draco decided that Granger was one of those problems best dealt with fully clothed, so he walked into his room to get dressed. That's where he found the reason for the innocent smile; all of his uniform ties had been shredded. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem; he would have just cast a quick reparo to put them back together, but it seemed that Granger had hidden the pieces all over the head dorms.

"I didn't like the green ones, but you can use this one," she told him from the doorway, holding out one of her Gryffindor ties.

He stared at her in disbelief; she was a muggleborn and four years old, so how in the world did she still have house loyalty? "There's nothing that will make me _ever_ wear that tie," he snapped at her, and then immediately regretted it when he saw her face; she looked crushed.

He took a deep breath in and out, to calm himself. He was sure to regret what he was about to say. "Fine, hand me the tie," he told her, wincing as he tied it around his neck, it felt like a betrayal. She perked right up and started bouncing happily around the room. Draco made a mental note to never have children, it seemed he didn't posses the ability to tell them no – but then he was raised like that and he turned out all right.

They were just getting ready to head out - Draco for classes and Hermione for the hospital wing where Madam Pomfrey had said she was welcome to stay while Draco was attending his classes – when there was a knock at the portrait hole.

"What _now_?" Draco asked the ceiling in exasperation before he pulled the door open to reveal an amused Blaise.

"I never thought I'd see the day that the self proclaimed Prince of Slytherin would wear a Gryffindor tie."

Draco glanced down and paled – he had planned on taking it off before they left the head dorms, no one was to see it. He whipped out his wand and pointed it at Blaise. "No one heard about this," he commanded threateningly.

"I won't tell a soul," Blaise said solemnly. Draco nodded, then turned to find out why Hermione was taking so long.

He was blinded by a bright flash and some evil, childish laughter. "Wow, it develops instantly!" Said the soon to be dead Gryffindor as she looked at the picture of Draco she had just taken. She skirted around him as he tried to snatch it from her and handed the picture to Blaise. "Mr. Blaise! If you _show_ people the picture you won't be _telling_ anyone!"

Blaise took the picture from her and looked at her with a new respect. "Four years old and already finding loopholes to avoid going back on your word," he pretended to wipe a tear away, "they grow up so fast." He noticed Draco's murderous expression and decided it might be a good time to leave – quickly.

He was too slow. Draco caught him by the back of his robes, and pulled him back into the room, where he could point his wand at his friend's face once again. "Hand over the picture Zabini," Blaise was going to do it, but he happened to glance over Draco's shoulder and grinned evilly.

"I don't think so mate. Here, I'll give you my tie out of the goodness of my heart, I have a few spares," he told him, confusing Draco greatly – people were supposed to tremble in fear when he pointed his wand at their face. Blaise took off his tie and handed it over. Draco figured out what Blaise had been looking at when he felt a kick to his shin. He glanced down at the irate little girl who was glaring up at him, she had a surprisingly strong kick for someone so small.

"What was that for!" he demanded.

"You were being mean to Mr. Blaise!" She yelled, kicking him again. Draco winced and frowned at her, but didn't comment; Blaise deserved it. He looked back to Blaise to discover he was gone – he must have bolted out the door the second Draco's attention was elsewhere, which was wise of him.

He glared murderously down the hallway as he tied the borrowed Slytherin tie. 'That one's going to come back and bite me in the arse' he thought gloomily when he found the hallway empty. Blaise with blackmail material like that was a very dangerous Blaise indeed. There was only one thing Draco could do; he had to get something to blackmail Blaise with...

"Come on, we'd better get you to the hospital wing," he told the silent child. She looked a little worried that he was mad at her, but took his hand nonetheless – she still didn't want to get lost.

* * *

Draco looked at the child sitting across the table in the library from him colouring her pictures. "You'd be so much more help with this if you were yourself right now," he told her wistfully, remembering some of the things they had terrorised the Weasley twins with. Granger would have been a whole lot of help with Blaise if she were just herself. He abruptly shook his violently – he needed to get more sleep, he just wished the normal Granger was back. He lay his head on his folded arms and tried to get started, these disturbing thoughts had to stop.

Hermione had tired of the wizard colouring book Madam Pomfrey had found for her, it was an evil thing, the pictures only got coloured if they wanted to, otherwise they'd avoid the crayons, and they were forever giving her their opinions on what colours they should be. She gave up on that and started to draw her own picture.

"I can help you get a silly picture of Mr. Blaise, but only if I get to press the button," a small voice said from across the table.

"And what do you propose we do?" Draco asked her skeptically.

"This!" She showed him the picture she had been colouring. Draco grinned an evil grin at her, she was brilliant!

* * *

"Okay, do you remember what you have to do?" Draco whispered to Hermione as they peeked around the corner at the approaching Blaise.

She nodded enthusiastically as she giggled excitedly. Draco had to shush her – she had enthusiasm, he had to give her that. She glanced at him to see if it was time to play her part, Draco gave her a nod and she tore off running around the corner.

"Mr. Blaise, Mr. Blaise, come quick!" She yelled, grabbing his hand and pulling him behind her.

"What's wrong Granger?" he demanded as he followed behind her. She ignored his question and that he had called her by her last name – she couldn't understand why everyone seemed to call her Granger. They ran around the corner that Draco was hiding behind, he stepped out into their line of sight and Blaise froze. He had been careful to avoid Draco all day, and now he let his guard down because the small Granger seemed like she needed help with something. He had time to glance down at the smirking child before Draco stunned him.

Hermione freed herself from Blaise's hand and ran over beside Draco, who handed her the camera before he got to work.

When he was finished, Draco tilted his head and contemplated his masterpiece. He held up the drawing Granger had done to compare her plan to the real thing – he had to admit, she was an evil genius.

"What do you think?" he asked her.

She came over and carefully looked over his work, the way he had seen her proofread essays before she had been changed into a little kid. "He needs a stripy red and yellow scarf like this one!" She exclaimed, pulling the Gryffindor scarf she had been wearing and handing it to Draco. Evil genius.

* * *

Blaise woke up a while later when Hermione was all set up for the 'photo shoot' and Draco cast a finite to cancel the stunning spell. "What was that for?" he asked angrily.

There was a bright flash that left him blinking and then some girlish evil laughing and a masculine snicker. Blaise looked in horror at what he was wearing. "Am I... Dressed as the Gryffindor lion?" he asked in horror, putting his hands up to his head to feel the mane they had given them.

Draco grinned and nodded, handing his friend the picture Hermione had taken a second ago as she continued to snap more. "As you can see, this is one of many pictures that will be spread all over the school if anyone ever sees the one of me in the Gryffindor tie." Draco told him smugly.

Blaise glared, he knew when he was beaten. "Where did you come up with this idea, I have to admit, it's genius." Draco smirked at him and held up a crayon drawing of a stick person wearing a lion suit.

He stared at it for a second in complete silence before bursting out laughing. "If she wasn't such a Gryffindor, she would have made an excellent Slytherin," Blaise said with approval.

Draco nodded, "I know, scary isn't it?"

"So we're even now, can we go to class?" Blaise asked as he took out his wand and transfigured his clothes back into his school uniform – minus the tie.

"Malfoy!" Someone yelled from the other end of the hallway.

"What Potter?" Draco asked as Harry, and Ron approached him.

"Have you seen Hermione? We can't find her anywhere!" The weasel asked him worriedly, not having caught sight of the small Hermione down the hallway snapping pictures of suits of armour. Potter and Weasley were looking worried but guilty, causing Draco to smirk – he had a pretty good idea what had happened.

"You mean you don't know yet?" He glanced over his shoulder, "Granger!" He called; he wasn't about to call her by her first name in front of her friends. She happily bounced over to see what he wanted, for someone who grew into such a serious teen, Granger was a bubbly little girl.

Draco's smirk widened as he watched the looks of horror on the two idiot's faces. "That spell on the door to our dorms was meant for me, that's what you were trying to tell her in potions, wasn't it?"

"Hi, I'm Hermione," she said happily to the two new people there. They seemed unable to answer in their shock, so she looked up at Draco. "Draco, who are these weird people?"

Her question seemed to snap them out of their trance. "Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, reaching for her. She squeaked and hid behind Draco.

"Weasel, you're scaring her," Draco warned.

"Ron, calm down, she's a little kid right now," Harry warned his... overenthusiastic friend.

"Well she's not safe with _Malfoy_," Ron yelled, trying to grab her again.

"She's been fine with him since she was changed," Blaise pointed out. "In fact, I think out of the two, _he's_ the one in danger. Your Granger's a bit of an evil genius." It took a whole lot of screaming on Granger's part, but eventually Harry and Ron agreed to let Hermione continue to stay with Draco.

"Remind me again why you couldn't stay with people who actually like you," he told her once potty and the weasel were out of earshot. She pouted at him.

"You have green hair; bad people can't have green hair, so I know I'm safe with you." She proclaimed before trotting off down the hallway ahead of them – apparently she was a quick study when it came to directions... and everything else.

Draco looked a Blaise for help. "Ahh, the logic of small children," was all Blaise had to offer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, etc! You guys are the best. I know the first few chapters have been mostly Draco. I promise Hermione will be back soon. **

**~Frosty**

"Granger, have you done something with my broom?" Draco demanded, searching under his bed. He had told her a while ago that she was going to stay here with her friends while he went to his quidditch practice – she hadn't taken the news well.

His question was met with silence – suspicious silence. He pulled his head out from under his bed and went in search of the troublesome little Gryffindor. Draco frowned when he found her bedroom and their common room empty as well. Where in the world could one small child who didn't like to leave the room without supervision get to?

He started to get a little but worried when he noticed that one of the common room windows was open a crack. Draco raced over to the open window and stuck his head out, sincerely hoping that he wasn't going to find what he was looking for.

He was disappointed. Floating several metres away and up, was Granger, clinging in terror to his missing broom. "What the _hell_ are you doing out there?" he roared at the terrified child, not helping the situation at all.

"Draco, help!" She wailed, not opening her eyes or loosening her death grip on the broom. He covered his eyes while he tried to think; this Gryffindor was going to be the death of him. He took a breath before jumping out the window and shifting to his animagus form – a Florida burrowing owl. He flew up to the broom and landed behind the frightened girl, changing back into himself and using his quick reflexes to steady them both. She immediately let go of the broom and somehow managed to turn around and cling to him.

Draco carefully manoeuvred the broom through the window and back to the safety of the common room. "You can open your eyes now, you're safe," he tried to reassure her, but she seemed to be inconsolable at the moment and would only continue to cling to him, even after he got off the broom and was standing up.

Draco held on to her so she didn't have to cling to him like that. He looked down at her in horror when he heard sniffling – clinging he could tolerate, barely, but clinging and crying was too much. He was a Slytherin for Merlin's sake; he didn't _do_ emotions.

Potter and Weasley chose that minute to come in. Draco wasn't sure if he should be thankful someone was here to take the crying female from him or mortified that these two particular people were here to witness him being almost _nice_. Even in his mind Draco sneered the word nice.

He pulled the crying Gryffindor off of him, thrust her into Potters arms and practically ran out the door. He had been awfully close to comforting someone else; showing compassion gave him goose bumps.

* * *

When Draco came back from quidditch practice, he found a subdued Granger, a worried, hovering Potter, and a weasel sitting oblivious to the other two as he ate his way through a plate of cookies.

"Ron! Those cookies were for Hermione!" Potter was telling Weasley as Draco came into the room. Seriously, he was supposed to save them all and he nagged like they were a married couple.

Granger perked right up when she noticed he was back. She jumped up and ran at him, presumably to hug him. "Stop!" he ordered her before she could get close enough. "I'm covered in mud and I'm all sweaty, you don't want to hug me."

She pouted at him, apparently all recovered from the shock that had been keeping her from being her normal bubbly four year old self. "You could take a bath! I want to come too, I really like baths!" She exclaimed excitedly.

Everyone else in the room just stared at her for a second, Harry and Ron in horror and Draco in amusement.

After a second or so of silence, Draco broke out in hysterical laughter, unable to keep it in any longer. "I really hope you remember saying that when you're normal again," he told her as he closed the door to the washroom with her on the outside of it. Just picturing the face she would make when she remembered saying that was going to keep him in a good mood for a long time; she would be completely mortified.

By the time Draco was finished in the shower and dressed in his pyjamas, Hermione was falling asleep where she was sitting on the couch between Harry and Ron. "Draco..." she started when she saw him.

"No," he responded automatically; he knew that tone, she was about to ask him something she didn't think he'd let her do, but was determined to try asking anyway, confident that she would eventually get her way.

"You don't even know what I was going to _ask_," she whined.

"At least hear her out, Malfoy," Potter told him - ever the peacekeeper that one.

"Fine, ask."

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" Weasley inhaled a cookie and started to choke. Draco snickered at the faces both boys were making.

"No," he told her again. "Now go to bed. Your _own_ bed," he had to add when he saw she was headed towards his room. He turned to the remaining people in the room. "Out," he told them as he pointed to the door. They glared at him, but curfew was rapidly approaching and they really should be leaving soon anyway, so they left quietly.

Draco went to bed and fell asleep almost the second his head hit the pillow – it had been an extremely exhausting quidditch practice.

He had been asleep for maybe five minutes before he was woken by a knock on his door. "You haven't been in bed long enough to hit a REM faze Granger, there's no way you've had a bad dream," he practically growled; he hated it when people woke him up.

"But Draco..." said a small voice.

He sighed, letting her sleep with him was the option that would get her to shut up the quickest, which meant that he would be asleep sooner. He went with that option. "Fine," he muttered as he moved over and she happily climbed in beside him – she had her pillow and everything.

* * *

Draco woke up feeling better rested than he had in a long time. He felt a weight on his chest that had to be Granger... She was probably doing something evil, maybe she'd decided his green hair needed pink streaks.

"Hermione, I swear to Merlin, if you're putting makeup on me again, I'm going to drop you out a window," he threatened. As he woke up more, he realized that the thing on his chest was much too light to be Granger sitting there.

Draco opened his eyes to figure out what was going on. They widened in horror as he took in the scene before him; a full sized Granger was snuggled right up against him with her head resting on his chest. At some point in the night, he had slung an arm over her as well. It was horrifying... Yet oddly comfortable.

He tried to wiggle out from under her without waking her up – _that_ was some awkwardness he would much rather avoid. He had no such luck. After a few seconds of fruitless wiggling, he was still stuck and she was starting to stir. This wasn't going to be pleasant, he could feel it.

She slowly blinked her eyes open and looked at him sleepily. "Morning Draco," she mumbled before snuggling back against him, she seemed content to doze.

Draco was scared. Very, very scared. She was going to kill him for this and never believe it was her own doing that led her into his bed. But then why had she actually seemed pleased to see him? Maybe this was some sort of new mind game she had come up with, he'd seen her in action at the Weasley hovel, and she wasn't above messing with people's heads. She seemed so _pleasant_ when she wasn't really awake, why couldn't she be like that all the time? He gave up trying to figure out the labyrinth that was her mind and just went back to sleep – it was so warm and comfy with her there.

When he next woke up, it was because someone was staring at him, he could _feel_ it. He opened his eyes and saw Granger sitting on the edge of the bed with a look of horror on her face. When she saw he was awake, she looked at him seriously "we will never speak of this again," she told him as she held out her hand to shake.

"Fine with me, Granger," he told her as he shook it. She got up and walked out of his room and into her own.

* * *

They didn't speak about _anything_, much less what Draco had come to refer to as 'the incident'. It had been over a week since either of them had spoken one word to each other and it was driving Draco insane; he was used to bickering with her or insulting her or bothering her. She was always _there_ and she always bickered or insulted or bothered right back. He kind of missed that. A lot really, if he was going to be honest – but he was a Slytherin, so he wasn't.

They went on ignoring each other for over a week before something strange happened that cause Hermione to break their mutual silence.

"Umm, Malfoy?" she asked wearily one night as he came through the portrait hole. She was slightly disturbed by his evil chuckling and huge, smug smirk. "What have you done _now_?"

"You'll see," he told her ominously, coming over to join her on the couch. "Just know that it will take them years to recover from the psychological trauma."

Hermione was confused; he had been ignoring her as much as she had been ignoring him, so why was he now sitting with her? Maybe he didn't notice how close he was sitting?

"Granger, can you remember what happened while you were little?" He asked suddenly. Hermione blushed; she vividly remembered everything that had happened during her time as a child – including asking to take a bath with him and insisting on sleeping in his bed instead of her own. It was strange really, remembering being four years old like it was a week ago because it _was_ a week ago. She nodded when he was starting to look impatient with her lack of an answer.

He nodded back as if she had confirmed his suspicions. "Something been bothering me: why did you take my broom flying? I thought you hated heights."

Hermione wrinkled her nose as she thought about it. "I remember the thought processes that led up to it, but they don't make any sense to me anymore. I was mad that you were taking your broom with you but not me, then I thought if I knew how to ride a broom, I could come with you."

"That makes perfect sense," he told her sarcastically.

"I _told_ you, I know it doesn't really make any sense."

"So who're you inflicting the psychological trauma on," she asked him, getting over the shock of him talking to her again and back to the content of the first thing he had said.

"Potter and Weasley of course, they intended that spell you were hit with for me. I can't just let them get away with things like that."

Hermione raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything; she had missed two whole days of classes thanks to them, they deserved anything Malfoy could dish out... Probably... As long as it didn't cause any physical harm.

* * *

"Ron! Ron help!" Ron woke from a dead sleep and looked around frantically while scrambling for his wand.

"Harry? What's wrong?" He asked the darkness hysterically while he cast a lumos.

When he finally managed to light it, he regretted it instantly; standing right in front of him was one of the largest spiders he had ever seen outside of the forbidden forest. It had too many eyes and large fangs, huge, hairy legs and... Harry's voice. He promptly passed out.

Harry rolled his many eyes and pulled a blanket over himself – maybe if Ron couldn't see him he'd be able to function like a normal person. Well, as close as Ron ever got anyway.

Ron woke up again a few minutes later and immediately lit his wand and looked around the room in a panic. "Harry! I had the most horrible dream," he told his friend's empty bed across the room.

"I know Ron; I've been having a similar one," Harry sympathised from the floor. Ron took one look at one of the long, spidery legs peeking out from under the blanket before he started hyperventilating and ran from the room.

Harry tore off the blanket and followed him, yelling. "Ron, wait! You just need to cast the counter curse."

* * *

Hermione was a bit worried about what evil plot Malfoy had been so smug about before bed; it was enough to keep her awake past her normal bedtime, which was lucky because just as she was getting ready to retire for the night, there was a knock at the door.

She stood up to go and answer it, but an excited Malfoy dashed out of his room and got to it first. Hermione looked at him in confusion; she had assumed he was sleeping, not lying in wait for whatever evil was on the other side of the door.

The second the portrait was opened, a frantic Ron burst into the room and hid behind Hermione. He wasn't very coherent, but she managed to gather something about spiders. She sat Ron down in front of the fire and tried to get some sense out of him. She glanced up at Malfoy standing beside the door, wondering why he hadn't closed it yet.

She looked back to Ron when he made a squeaking sound and threw himself behind the couch. "Ron, it's me, Harry," Harry's voice said from somewhere, but Hermione couldn't see where it was coming from.

"Down here, Hermione."

Hermione obediently looked down and saw something very disturbing. It was a spider the size of a dog with a lightning bolt scar and Harry's glasses. She looked from the smirking Malfoy to the spider Harry to the trembling Ron, still on the floor behind the couch, trying to hide himself behind a throw pillow. Psychological trauma indeed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**A/N: This chapter might be the last one for a while; I'm moving next weekend and still have a LOT of things that need to be done. The italics are the last bit of the previous chapter, I didn't want anyone to be confused... Also, I'm probably ignoring all kinds of laws in this chapter, but it works so much better when I do that.**

**Just to warn you ahead of time: this is one of those chapters where my sense of humour changed... So it gets a little odd sometimes, but I like it.**

**They're a little more out of character in this one than they usually are in my stories (I know they're already pretty out of character), just to warn you.**

**~Frosty**

_She looked from the smirking Malfoy to the spider Harry to the trembling Ron, still on the floor behind the couch, trying to hide himself behind a throw pillow. Psychological trauma indeed._

"I think Ron's adequately traumatised now, so you can change him back," Hermione told Malfoy, who had finally closed the door.

"I don't think so, Granger. This is too much fun."

Hermione was a little bit disturbed, Malfoy was practically _gleeful. _She carefully examined Harry, but if she didn't know what spell or potion Malfoy used to get him that way, trying to change him back could be dangerous. Ron's whimpering from behind the couch was starting to get to her, and making it hard to think, so she stunned him.

Malfoy chuckled, drawing her attention away from Harry. She scowled at him when she saw that he had conjured popcorn and was watching them intently.

"Malfoy," she started sweetly enough to make him nervous. "Remember that picture Blaise had that he threatened you with? I think you should keep in mind that I have a copy too." His eyes widened in horror; she could do a lot of damage with that picture.

He scowled darkly at the Gryffindors, but reluctantly changed Harry back to normal before he went up to his room to pout, leaving his popcorn on the floor. Hermione grinned triumphantly at Harry and woke Ron up.

"SPIDERS!" was the first thing out of Ron's mouth. Harry and Hermione shared a look for a second, before Harry obliviated their friend.

"How're you feeling Ron?" Hermione asked him worriedly.

"I think... I had a bad dream, but I can't remember any of it," Ron said, looking around the room. "How did I get here?"

"Let's get back to our beds Ron, it's late," Harry told him soothingly, leading him out of the room. Ron followed with a bewildered look on his face.

Hermione smiled fondly at the two before heading off to bed as well.

* * *

The next few months passed relatively uneventfully. Hermione and Malfoy would occasionally talk to each other like they were almost friends, but there were also stretches where they didn't say a word to each other for days.

Before anyone knew it, April had arrived and it was time for their Easter break. Hermione had decided to go home instead of the Burrow this year – she wasn't sure whether the Weasleys had seen the picture that proved she'd brought Draco Malfoy into their home by tricking them.

The train ride home fell in the middle of one of the stretches that she and Malfoy didn't acknowledge the other one, making for a quiet day of packing and a peaceful ride home.

Hermione claimed exhaustion when she got home and settled down in her childhood bedroom. The last thought she had before she went to sleep was one of contentment that could only be brought on with the knowledge that nothing she ate could change her into a rabbit, and anything she failed to dodge would hurt, not cause some disturbing magical damage. Sometimes being a muggleborn was great.

* * *

Hermione blinked a few times in the bright sunlight before smiling sleepily and stretching; today was going to be a good day, she was sure of it. Malfoy was far, far away at the manor, everyone anywhere near her was muggle, so there was no chance of something strange happening to her, and he parents had promised her a surprise once they came home from work.

She got out of bed and padded downstairs in her bare feet in search of something to eat, but her perusal of the refrigerator was interrupted by the shrill ring of the phone.

"GRANGER!" The receiver yelled the second she said hello.

"Malfoy? Where in the world are you calling from? And when did you learn to use the telephone?" She asked him, holding the receiver away from her head.

"I think I'm in some version of... muggle Azkaban," he told her hesitantly; apparently someone on the other end had shushed him for yelling. Hermione frowned; was he trying to say he was in jail and calling from the police station?

"Malfoy, what are you doing there?" She asked him disbelievingly. In order for him to be in muggle jail, he would have had to be in the muggle world at some point, and that just didn't seem like a Malfoy thing to do.

"Potter and I had a bet. He bet that I couldn't stay in the muggle world for 24 hours without getting into trouble, and I bet that I could." Hermione snickered at that.

"Evidently, you lost," she told him dryly.

"Actually, I won."

"What was the definition of 'trouble' you two were working with? Apparently it varies from what normal people consider trouble."

She heard an annoyed sigh from the other end. "I'm going to give you the address and then you're going to come bail us out, they told me to call someone to do that for me," immediately after he said that, he recited an address and then hung up, leaving poor Hermione in shock.

"Us?" she asked no one, staring at the receiver. Who in the world would be out and about in the muggle world with Draco Malfoy?

She took a minute to mourn her peaceful family vacation before getting into her car to go and retrieve the arrogant pureblood.

Hermione found the police station with relative ease, and anxiously walked in. The officer behind the desk seemed overjoyed that she was here to retrieve 'the blond menace' and his partner in crime.

She almost didn't want to ask, but she had to know. "Why 'the blond menace'?"

The officer looked off into the distance as if reliving a horrifying memory. "We don't speak of it," he told her, before thrusting the papers she needed to fill out to get Malfoy released. Hermione made a mental note to ask 'the blonde menace' how he had earned his title later.

It took her a surprisingly long time to fill out the evil forms, but eventually a scowling Malfoy and an embarrassed Harry were led out to meet her.

Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw it was Harry he had been with, she had been expecting Zabini or possibly Goyle.

"_Why_ in the world were you two in jail in the first place?" She asked in exasperation as she led the still silent pair out to her car.

"It was the squirrel's fault." Draco complained. Harry looked at him in disbelief; where was the aloof Malfoy he had grown used to? Or the drunk Malfoy was bullied by wildlife? He wasn't sure he had ever heard Malfoy whine like that.

Hermione groaned; nothing reasonable could have happened between 'it was the squirrels fault' and 'com get us, we're in jail'. "Okay, explain," she told them both.

"Well, we were drinking, and Malfoy thought it would be a good idea to throw some of the bar nuts in his back pocket for later..." Harry started, glancing at Malfoy occasionally.

"Potter said there was a shortcut to the apparition point through a park... Where there were squirrels."

"A _lot_ of squirrels," Harry added. Hermione rolled her eyes and made a 'go on' gesture.

"They started _following_ us, and we couldn't figure out why, so we ran –"

"_Tried_ to run," Harry amended. "We were pretty drunk, running was difficult."

Draco was nodding. "And the trees wouldn't stay still."

Hermione blinked owlishly at them for a few seconds. "Okay, that's starting to creep me out, stop finishing each other's thoughts and get on with the explaining!"

"Well, we split up and ran in different directions... We were hoping it would confuse them and they'd leave us alone... But they didn't" Harry told her.

"No, they all went after _me_!" Draco complained.

"They wanted the nuts in his pocket. When I found him he was halfway up a tree yelling about pants stealing squirrels."

Hermione covered her eyes with her hands. "_Please _tell me you had pants on in the park."

"I did... Until the squirrels stole them from me."

"Squirrels can't steal pants!"

"They can when you take them off," he responded.

"Why did you take off your pants?" She demanded, exasperated with the entire story already.

"One of the squirrels crawled up my pant leg; I had to get him out..."

"You know what? I don't want to know the whole story, just tell me why you were arrested," she told the two. She was going to personally make sure that neither of them drank in the presence of the other ever again.

"I was pant-less and trying to strangle a squirrel that was biting me, and Potter was halfway up a tree egging it on," he shot a glare at Harry, who was snickering behind his hand.

Harry shrugged, "I felt safer up the tree."

"You do realize they were _squirrels_ Potter, if they wanted to get up the tree, they would have."

"Skip to the part with the police!" Hermione ordered.

"He tried the 'Malfoy's don't get arrested for common things' on them, but they just laughed."

"They arrested us for a bunch of things, I didn't have any pants on, was attempt to strangle wildlife, we were being rowdy..."

"Public intoxication... and I'm pretty sure I punched someone," Harry finished, showing her his bruised and cut knuckles.

"No... I think I vaguely recall you punching a tree. Does that count as vandalism?" Draco asked.

Harry pondered it for a second. "Was the tree hurt?"

"ENOUGH!" Hermione was pretty sure she was going to get a migraine from all the stupidity floating around the car at the moment. For intelligent people, those two sure could be morons sometimes. She demanded they finish the rest of the ride in silence, and turned up the radio to ensure that it happened.

When they finally got back to her house, Hermione literally dragged both boys into the living room and pushed them towards the fireplace. "Harry, floo back to the Burrow or wherever you're supposed to be, and Malfoy, you can floo back to whatever hole you crawled out of." She was annoyed, and had regressed in her treatment of Malfoy.

Harry, being a good friend and understanding that Hermione needed time alone, left immediately after a quick goodbye. Malfoy, knowing the same thing that Harry did, but not really caring, decided it would be _much _more fun to stay and bother Granger for a while.

"Malfoy! Go home, go to Hogwarts, go _somewhere_!" She yelled at him when it became apparent that he would rather poke around at the knick knacks on the fireplace mantle that actually get in the fireplace.

"Why would I go when it's so much more fun to stay here and bother you?" He asked, watching in amusement as her face flushed with anger – she was like the angry little bunny that he had seen her changed into; her anger was impressive, but had no real effect because she was just so _small_, she only came up to his shoulders.

Just as she was getting ready to attack the insufferable blond – whether verbally or physically, she wasn't sure – the front door opened and her parents entered. "Hermione, we brought you a surprise!" Her mom said happily as she entered closely followed by her dad and –

"Grandma!" Hermione yelled, rushing over to hug the older woman. Her grandmother had moved to India a few years before, stating she needed 'hot climate and spicy food to put some fire back into her life', much to the mortification of most of her family – she was supposed to settle down in a cottage on the countryside or something, not search for 'fire'.

"How's my little chipmunk?" The woman asked as she hugged her granddaughter, causing Draco's eyebrows to raise so high they disappeared into his hair. 'Chipmunk?' he mouthed to her over her grandmother's shoulder. She scowled at him but didn't comment.

After they were done happily watching the reunion going on in the doorway, the Grangers all came into the house and noticed the blond standing arrogantly beside the fireplace. He was looking at them as if they were particularly interesting bugs under a magnifying glass.

Hermione noticed what everyone else was looking at and glanced nervously between Malfoy and her family – as far as she knew, his only experience with muggles so far had involved them arresting him. "Umm, everyone? This is Draco Malfoy; I go to school with him." Hermione had never been the type to tell her parents everything, so they had no idea about the things that had been going on at school. They had never heard the name Malfoy before, so they didn't dislike him on behalf of their daughter – they were free to dislike him for completely different reasons, like his personality.

Mr. Granger immediately disliked him simply because he was a boy home alone with his daughter. Mrs. Granger and her mother-in-law were more charitable – there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for his presence in their house.

"What brings you here, Draco?" Mrs. Granger asked after the introductions were out of the way.

"I needed someone to bail- Oof," Draco was interrupted by an elbow to the ribs from Granger, who obviously didn't think it was a good idea to tell her parents and grandmother the real reason to visit. "I was in the neighbourhood," he amended, glancing at Granger to make sure that wasn't going to make her elbow him again.

"Well, you're welcome to stay," her mother told him politely, elbowing her husband to stop him from glaring. Draco glanced down at Granger, she was starting to make more sense now that he'd met her family, they were just as crazy as she was.

"More than welcome," her grandmother added, looking him up and down with a predatory look. He stepped closer to Hermione, attempting to hide behind her as she watched with amusement.

Draco reached for the dish on the mantle that he had seen Granger hand to Potter for the floo powder, but she slapped his hand away. "Grandma doesn't know I'm a witch!" she hissed to him.

"How am I supposed to get home then?" He demanded, also in a hiss.

"You're going to have to stay until she goes to bed or something." Draco cringed; spending day with muggles after a night in jail with Potter – joy. He was going to have to steal candy from a small child to make up for all the time he was spending with Gryffindors; next he was going to go soft and save a kitten from a tree or something else stupid and potentially dangerous.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**A/N:I AM AN IDIOT. I posted a chapter from another story here. I'm really REALLY sorry, I don't even know how it happened... I won't post at 3:30 in the morning anymore! Here's the REAL chapter.  
**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed, etc! You guys are the best, and always make me smile ****. I know I'm picking on Draco again, but Hermione'll get her turn too... Do lots of people drink milk with their dinner? I know mine always has... *nosewrinkle* I never liked the stuff. Am I the only one who ever get nostalgic and goes to a park to swing? That or I go 'cause they're fun...**

**This chapter is the... Mushyist chapter I have ever written. Tell me what you think? **

**~Frosty**

The second there was a lull in the conversation in the room, Mrs. Granger jumped up and announced she was 'going to make tea if anyone wanted any' and dragged Hermione with her into the kitchen. "Hermione, who is that boy?" She demanded as soon as they were alone together.

"He's Draco Malfoy, he's the head boy. We work together a lot at school." Hermione hadn't told her parents that the head girl and boy shared a dorm; it would have caused unnecessary worrying, and they would have told her to decline the position, which would have led to a fight when she refused.

"And you two are... Just friends?" She asked her daughter disbelievingly; she had seen the way that boy and Hermione looked at each other with... heat. Little did Mrs. Granger know, a lot of that heat could be attributed to the hate they had felt for each other until recently – recently, it had changed into something else.

"Yes mum, _just_ friends." Her mum nodded, but still looked a little doubtful of her daughter.

The kettle screeched that the tea was boiled, startling them both. Mrs. Granger took the tea tray off of the counter and poured the boiling water into the waiting tea pot while Hermione went over to the cupboard to get some biscuits.

Hermione stopped for a second on the way back to take in the scene before her. Her father was glaring daggers at Malfoy while her grandmother kept moving closer and closer to him. Malfoy looked completely at a loss and very, _very_ uncomfortable.

She thought it might be best that she went and saved him before he did something stupid like whip out his wand and threaten to hex her grandma if she edged closer to him one more time.

Draco glanced up when Granger walked into the room and a wave of relief washed over him; she was here to save him from these crazy people. "I'm going to go show Ma- er, Draco the basement," Hermione announced to everyone, turning to leave the room.

Draco jumped up from the couch and ran after her without looking back – anything to escape her grandmother. "I could kiss you," he told her gratefully, once they were safely down the basement stairs and out of earshot of her family. She froze and turned to face him.

"What's stopping you?" She asked him quietly. Draco considered her for a second in disbelief before taking a step towards her, bringing them toe to toe.

"You'd let me?" He questioned seriously.

Hermione was panicking on the inside; she had thought to mess with his head a little, but he actually seemed serious. For the first time, she actually considered how she felt about him, and was surprised to find that she didn't think she'd mind kissing him – when had _that_ happened?

Draco watched with amusement as her internal monologue was written all over her face. He had thought to mess with her and watch her freak out when he stepped close to her, but the freak out wasn't happening. He was a little disturbed that the idea of kissing her was starting to seem like an attractive one.

When her face moved from surprise to confusion he leaned in and gently took hold of her face before he kissed her. He felt her stiffen for a second before she relaxed and leaned against him, bringing her arms up around his neck as he moved his behind her back.

Once she stopped panicking and over-thinking everything, Hermione actually started to enjoy it – Malfoy's soft mouth was moving possessively over hers, making her feel all... tingly was the only word she could think of to describe it.

Hermione's lungs were just starting to ache for air when Malfoy broke away and stared at her for a minute, breathing heavily, just as she was. Before either of them could initiate any form of what was sure to be awkward conversation, there was a loud crash from upstairs.

Hermione immediately ran upstairs, Malfoy behind her. "Is everyone all right?" She asked worriedly as she came into the room.

"Fine dear, I just dropped the tea tray," her mother told her as she picked up the pieces. "It was empty; the only thing that broke was the tray. You two go back downstairs," she ordered, probably not wanting them to step on the pieces of glass.

Draco watched with disbelief as Granger's mom picked up the pieces of glass _with her hands_ – it was unheard of! That was what house elves were for, or magic. But then these people were muggles, and obviously insane. He glanced at Granger, but she seemed to still be worried that someone was secretly hurt if the way she was watching her family was any indication, so he gently took her elbow and turned her towards the basement door.

She appeared to snap out of it and shook his hand off of her. "I'm fine," she told him, taking a shuddering breath. "I just worry about them, here without magic to protect them and death eaters wandering around, causing havoc."

Draco understood completely; he worried enough about his mother and father, and they were armed with magic and living within the impenetrable wards of the manor. He could only imagine how worried she must be about her parents. "Why are the couches facing that black box?" He asked to distract her, after looking around the room for a suitable topic.

She glanced at the 'black box' he was talking about and grinned at him; he had never watched T.V. before. "Come see," she told him, sitting in the couch and grabbing the remote.

Draco watched as she pointed the little black bar with the squishy circles labelled with numbers and some mysterious tiny words. She pressed the larger red button, and suddenly, the black box lit up with what sounded like an explosion. Draco jumped up and pointed his wand at it, ready to use a protego should the thing decided to attack.

He lowered his wand when he noticed that Granger didn't look worried at all – in fact, she was _laughing_ at him. He scowled at her, but at least she wasn't all... worried anymore; this was how she was supposed to be.

Draco soon learned that the black box was called a 'television' and he was shocked to discover that this muggle invention was actually rather ingenious. They watched it in silence until they were called upstairs for dinner.

* * *

"What are we having?" Hermione asked as she sat down in the same seat she always sat at when they ate in the dining room.

"French rabbit stew," her mother told her, frowning when she saw Hermione wrinkle her nose – she had issues with eating cute little bunnies. "Shush, just eat it," her mother scolded her as she set everyone's dinner in front of them before getting her own.

Draco looked from the meat in front of him to Hermione beside him. "Does this make me a cannibal?" He whispered, amused. Hermione snorted and tried to keep the milk she had sipped from spraying all over her dad, sitting across from her.

"I think you're fine, you're not a rabbit anymore," she whispered back when she finally caught her breath again. By that time, everyone at the table was looking at them in confusion.

"It's nothing," Hermione was quick to reassure them, watching until they went back to their meals before glaring at Draco. Hermione and Draco ate in silence while her family made conversation around them.

"Granger, you grandmother's hand is on my knee. _What do I do!"_ Draco suddenly whispered frantically. Hermione snickered, but didn't give him any advice. She let him freak out silently for a while before she excused herself from the table.

"Draco and I are going for a walk," she announced to everyone, dragging Malfoy along with her.

"Your family is mental Granger," he said the second they were out of earshot.

"And yours is the epitome of normalcy?"

"Hey, none of my grandparents would try to _violate you_ under the _table_!" Hermione could only laugh helplessly; he'd see the humour of it once the psychological scarring healed a little...

"Where are we going?" He asked her, looking around the muggle neighbourhood they were walking through.

"To the park," Hermione told him, she had been dying to play on a swing set for a while now – she wasn't sure why, but every now and then she got nostalgic and just _had_ to swing.

"What kind of strange, insane muggle thing are we going to do now?" Hermione grinned at him, taking his hand and dragging him over to the sing set.

"We're going to swing," she said happily, sitting down on one and pumping her legs to start moving. Malfoy watched her for a second before he copied what she was doing on the swing beside her. Something about being removed from Hogwarts and everyone who would judge them allowed them to become closer in a way that they had both vehemently denied existed before – that and they had both recently discovered that the other was not near as repulsive as they had previously thought.

They both kicked their legs, going higher and higher until Hermione jumped off of her swing and managed to land on her feet. Draco was impressed; she had always come across as not very athletic and coordinated.

He jumped off and stumbled, falling back onto his butt. Hermione laughed at him, he was supposed to be the coordinated one, what with him being a seeker and all. He grabbed her arm and pulled her down on top of him, but she just continued her laughing.

Draco frowned at her, he couldn't believe her insolence! He stopped her laughter the only way he could think of that didn't involve a hex, he kissed her - again.

Hermione immediately stopped laughing when Malfoy kissed her for the second time that day; it felt just as nice as it had the first time, and he was so _warm_ compared to the cold air outside.

She hadn't even noticed his hands wandering until he suddenly broke away from her, leaning back and looking at her with wide eyes. "Granger," Malfoy said in a panic. "Your arse is vibrating, what's happening?"

"If it's going to freak you out when I get text messages, then keep your hands off my butt." She told him with a frown.

"Do these... Text messages happen a lot? Should we go to St. Mungos?" Hermione smiled indulgently, he was both concerned and adorably confused, it was sweet. Then she remembered what they had just been doing and blushed bright red – she didn't know what had come over her.

"Granger –" he started.

"Hermione," she interrupted him.

"What?"

"You just had your hands on my butt; I think we've reached the stage where you can call me Hermione."

He smiled. "Very well, then you're to call me Draco." He ordered imperiously. "Now, as I was saying, what is a text message?"

"In this case, it's my mom telling me we've been gone long enough and need to come back home before we freeze."

"It seems that's a universal thing with mothers, muggle or pureblood," he said with amusement.

Hermione grinned at him as she climbed off oh him and held out a hand to help him up. "We should probably be getting back," she told him as she pulled him up as best she could – he was quite a bit heavier than she was.

"Have you noticed that even when we try to avoid each other, we end up stuck together by something?" Draco asked suddenly on their walk back.

"I have; maybe the universe is trying to tell us something," Hermione told him thoughtfully.

"Like what, 'don't assume you're better than someone because of blood, because one day they might be the one to bail you out of muggle jail and save you from her grandmother'?" Draco asked sarcastically.

She frowned at him – that hadn't been exactly what she had been thinking.

"Oh no," Hermione said with wide eyes as they approached her house.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked; worried that she would have some other unannounced relatives coming over to harass him or something.

"Grandma broke out the after dinner wine."

"First of all, how do you know that from three houses away? Second of all, why is that a concern?"

Hermione put her hand over her eyes. "Grandma gets... interesting when she gets into the wine, and I know from here because the lamps are on the porch. If we leave them in the house when she's drinking, she tends to yell at them... Sometimes their 'arguments' get violent." Draco's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline and he chuckled – he was never going to complain about his grandparents being boring again, it was safer with them the way they were.

"Mum, we're back!" Hermione yelled as soon as she opened the door. She didn't wait for an answer, she just ran to the basement with Draco following behind. "Trust me, if you were scared of grandma before, you don't want to be anywhere near her now," Hermione told him as she plopped down on the couch, patting the spot beside her as an invitation.

Draco joined her and they watched the black box in a comfortable silence until Draco fell asleep.

Hermione blinked sleepily at the television when the show ended. She looked at Draco; he seemed to have fallen asleep. She didn't really blame him; he had had an eventful 24 hours. She smiled softly; he wasn't a prat when he slept, he looked almost innocent. She smoothed his hair out of his face before leaning against him; she felt small and safe there; small was something normal for her, but to feel safe in the times they were living in was something of a novelty to her. She fell asleep without worrying about her surroundings – something that hadn't happened since she had been small child... A few months ago.

"Draco, dear," someone said softly as they shook him awake. He blinked his eyes open sleepily, confused about who these people in front of him were and why the man seemed like he was trying to glare a hole in his head... "She's asleep now, you can use the fireplace," the woman continued.

He looked around the room; still not sure what was going on or where he was. Understanding hit him when he looked down and got a face full of something soft and fluffy, something that smelled like... pears? It was Granger, curled up against him and asleep. That explained her father's glare.

He tried to carefully extract himself from her hold without waking her up, but wasn't very successful. "Mmmm," she groaned as she started to wake up, she held on tighter to Malfoy in an attempt to keep her warmth source.

He leaned down and whispered in to her "Hermione, I have to leave. You need to let go of me before your father causes me bodily harm." Hermione stopped trying to hold onto him, but didn't wake up enough to say goodbye.

Draco said an awkward goodbye to her parents before flooing back to his own house – probably to be grounded forever for disappearing the night before.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**A/N: I know they were calling each other by their first names, but they've known each other for years by last names, or they might get annoyed by the person, or they might be in front of someone else who didn't know they were that close, there are all kinds of reasons... Just know I didn't forget. Kay? :)  
**

**Thanks to ChesireCat23 for pointing out that I never said why Draco called her instead of Harry.**

**~Frosty**

Hermione spent the rest of her uneventful break unable to believe what had happened that day was real; if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes; she would never have been able to even _picture_ Draco Malfoy in her house.

"Stay away from that Draco boy, he's trouble," her father warned her as she hugged him goodbye before she boarded the train.

"I'll try, but I'm not sure it'll work..." She told him with a grin, not upset with that fact at all. Her dad frowned at her, but didn't have time to say anything because she had climbed onto the train already.

She found the compartment with Harry already waiting for everyone else and sat down beside him. "Okay Harry, I know you wouldn't have told me while Malfoy was there; _why_ were you two out drinking in the first place?"

"Well... Remember when I disappeared on the train ride back?" She nodded hesitantly; she vaguely remembered Harry leaving for a while she had been reading. "I kind of... Ran into Malfoy on the way back to the compartment and he was telling Crabbe and Goyle that firewhisky was way better than anything muggles could come up with, so I told him he was wrong, then he said 'prove it'. So when we got off the train, we just exited the station and went into muggle London in search of alcohol..."

"And the 'blond menace' thing?" Harry looked a little uncomfortable answering that one, which made Hermione even more determined to find out what happened.

"He kind of got bored in the holding cell... so he was flirting with the girls in the next cell over. I fell asleep then, but when I woke up, all four of the girls were on the ground fighting." Hermione rolled her eyes; of course it was something like that, she had been worried he had been given his nickname for something dangerous or some such thing.

"Why couldn't _you_ have called me instead of telling Malfoy my number?" She asked him.

Harry looked sheepish. "I kind of used my phone call in an attempt to tell Ginny where I was, but Mr. Weasley answered and he was so excited that someone had called them on his new telephone that he talked so much I didn't have a second to work even one word in," Hermione snickered a little bit at him; it seemed the universe was mad at him.

"What are we talking about?" Ron asked as he joined them, followed closely by his sister.

"Nothing," Harry informed him, shooting a look at Hermione to make sure she wasn't going to tell. She rolled her eyes; of _course_ she wasn't going to tell, Ron would flip if he found out Malfoy had been to her house, and Ginny would probably get that annoying, knowing look she was so good at.

Hermione moved to the other side of the compartment so Ginny could sit beside her boyfriend. "So tell me what you did over your vacation," she said to Hermione. They spent the train ride laughing with their friends over the antics the Weasleys had managed to get into over their break.

* * *

"Your hair! It's blonde again!" Was the first thing Hermione said when she saw Draco again in the head's common room. She ran to where he was sitting on the couch and examined it from close up.

"The green grew out, so I had it cut off," he told her.

"How'd your break go?" Hermione asked; wondering how much trouble he'd been in for his little venture out into the muggle world.

"Other than the squirrel incident? It was pretty horrible. Mother was in a state when I got home a day later than I was supposed to, I don't get any allowance for the rest of the year and father insisted that mother needed to get me a whole new wardrobe as his own special punishment," he told her as he opened his robes to show he was wearing a sweater vest underneath.

Hermione cringed, it was horrible. "Burn it," she told him.

Draco grinned, they were thinking along the same lines. He took off the evil piece of clothing, threw it into the grate, and lit it on fire with his wand.

Hermione watched it burn for a second with satisfaction, then dragged her trunk up to her room to start unpacking.

It was a few hours later when Ginny burst into the room. Hermione looked up from the book she was reading on the couch, but Draco continued working on the essay he had been editing at the table. She looked from Hermione to Draco, squealed happily, then ran from the room again. "Your friends are mental," Draco told Hermione once the door had closed again.

Hermione sighed, but couldn't actually disagree; Ginny _was_ acting mental at the moment.

Ginny came back a few minutes later dragging poor Blaise behind her.

"Pay up Zabini!" She yelled happily, pointing at the confused head students in front of them. He looked between the two before turning back to the overexcited redhead still pulling on his arm.

"There's no way you can tell," he told her.

She frowned at everyone in the room who was looking at her like she was mental. "I _can_ tell. _Look_ at them!"

"What is going on here!" Hermione demanded, getting fed up with the two talking about her without explaining anything.

"Weasley and I had a bet going... She bet Draco would make a move before Easter break was over, I bet after," Blaise explained. He turned to Draco, "_How_ the hell did you even manage that? You were at _home_... Weren't you?"

"There's no way you can tell," Hermione told her friend, agreeing with Zabini.

"I _can_ tell!" Ginny insisted again. "You two have a _glow_." Hermione and Draco both looked down at themselves to make sure they weren't glowing – they weren't, Ginny was insane.

"Your lack of a denial is leading me to believe that Weasley is right, and I'm about to have 20 less Galleons," Blaise said morosely as he handed the money over to a grinning Ginny.

"For your own safety, I'm going to pretend I didn't see that," Draco told the two pests. "Now, Blaise, go back to whatever you were doing. Weaslette, take Hermione and do whatever you were here to do, just leave me _alone._"

They actually listened to him, possibly because he had been serious about their safety; he looked murderous. Ginny grabbed Hermione and pulled her up the stairs into the head girl's room. "Tell. Me. Everything." So she did – minus the stuff involving Harry... and jail.

* * *

The next morning, Hermione was sitting at the table eating some cereal before class when Draco came down the stairs wearing sky blue robes and a round blue hat. Hermione stared at him for a second, very afraid for his sanity. "Draco... What are you wearing?"

"Miss Granger, are you feeling all right? I'm not Mr. Malfoy, I'm Professor Dumbledore," Draco told her in what was admittedly a very convincing Dumbledore impersonation.

Hermione raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Where did you even get those robes?" She really doubted the Draco owned anything like that, most of his clothes were black, shades of gray, or white, not _colours_.

"Someone was kind enough to lay them out for me," he told her. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"Umm... Yes, I'm feeling fine professor... Listen, I need you to come see Harry with me, I'm worried about him." She told him, leading the way to the Gryffindor common room.

She hastily told the fat lady the password and burst into the common room. "HARRY!" she yelled the second she was inside, severely startling a group of first years who probably thought the head girl was supposed to be more polite and less insane.

"That's not very polite Miss. Granger," Draco said as he came in behind her, causing the poor first years to retreat towards their dorm room – this was just too much weirdness for them.

A very ruffled Harry came down the stairs followed by an equally sleep ruffled Ron. When they caught sight of Draco, they grinned at each other and high fived.

"You think this is _funny?"_ Hermione screeched at them.

"I think it's brilliant," Ron bravely told her.

Hermione rounded on him. "You. Will. Fix. This. Now."

"We can't Hermione," Harry told her with fake regret. "There's no way to reverse the spell, but it'll wear off after a few hours.

Hermione turned to the Dumbledore copycat who was comforting the first years who had been trying to retreat. "He's going to kill you for this," she told them honestly – if he didn't murder them, he'd do something worse.

"We can take Malfoy," Ron said with a confidence Hermione knew he didn't have; he was still a little twitchy around Harry after the spider incident.

"Miss. Granger, I think it's time I went back to my office," Draco told her, heading out of the portrait hole and towards the gargoyle statue that guarded the headmaster's office. Hermione followed, wondering what he was going to do when he got there; he didn't actually know the password.

"Miss. Granger, Mr. Malfoy, what a pleasant surprise," the real Dumbledore said as he came out of his office.

"Professor, can I speak to you for a second?" Hermione asked the real Dumbledore. She looked over to Draco, "Alone," she added when he moved to follow them into the office.

"Certainly Miss. Granger," Dumbledore told her, leading the way into his office.

"Draco's under a spell, he thinks he's you..." She explained, a little bit worried that he was going to be upset.

"I thought his robes were more stylish than usual," Dumbledore told her, seeming to ponder the situation. He suddenly clapped his hands, "I think this was a delightful idea!" He declared.

Hermione's jaw dropped. "Sir?" She asked.

"I think we should allow him to do my duties for the day, I've been meaning to work on my golf game. These muggle sports are so exciting, and I get so little time to practice them," Dumbledore said happily, waving his wand and changing his robes into some sort of plaid monstrosity.

Hermione frowned. "But Sir –" she started, only to be interrupted by Draco coming into the room.

"I think I've been more than hospitable by allowing you and this imposter the use of my office, Miss. Granger, but I have work to be doing, so if you don't mind," Draco gestured to the door.

"I'll alert the teachers that he'll be missing his classes, and that he's the headmaster for the day," Dumbledore told her quietly as he left his office.

"Miss. Granger, you should be off to classes soon, or you might be late," Draco told Hermione. She rolled her eyes, and left – there was no point in trying to talk some sense into him right now, but she was so going to laugh at him later for this.

Classes that day were surprisingly uneventful, considering how stressful Hermione's morning had been. Come lunchtime, she was a bundle of tension just waiting to snap – it had been an almost _relaxing_ morning, and she just didn't get to have them.

"What was it that you were screaming in the common room about this morning, Hermione?" Ginny asked when she sat down across from the redhead. Hermione shot a glare at Harry and Ron, who were staring towards the teacher's podium at the front of the great hall.

"Can I have your attention please?" Draco asked the hall, taking his fake job too seriously – possibly because he didn't know it was fake.

"That's why, Ginny," Hermione pointed to her fellow head, sighing; there goes her relaxing day, but at least the tension wasn't building anymore.

Ginny – along with almost everyone else in the school – watched with surprise and amusement as their head boy mimicked their headmaster. The fact that the teachers seemed to be going along with this only amused them all the more.

"It seemed that our head boy had gone missing," Draco told the school gravely, looking a little confused when people started snickering. "In his stead I would like to appoint..." Draco started shaking his head, as if his ears were bothering him and shaking them off was the solution he had come up with.

He suddenly went completely still, before sharply looking up in the direction of Harry and Ron and shooting a death glare. "Potter, Weasley, I'm going to _destroy_ you," he told them in a dangerously calm voice.

Harry and Ron jumped up and ran from the room; the spell wasn't supposed to wear off for another few hours, and they weren't _near_ ready for an enraged Malfoy to come after them.

Draco watched from the front of the room, looked down once again at the robes he was wearing, and shrugged before calmly walking over to the Slytherin table and sitting down beside a laughing Blaise.

"Zabini," he said warningly, fed up with people daring to _laugh_ at him.

"Draco, you, Dumbledore... hat, SKY BLUE!" Was all Blaise managed to get out between his fits of laughter. Draco sighed; he needed to get better friends.

"Zabini, shut it or I'll shut if _for _you," Draco tried warning again – to no avail; Blaise just kept _laughing_. He cast a silencing spell on his friend and silently set about eating his lunch, giving a death glare to anyone who _dared_ to laugh at him.

Hermione calmly watched all of this happen from her seat at the Gryffindor table – that was more like it was supposed to be around here.

Draco suddenly glanced up across the room and caught Hermione's eyes. He mouthed 'your friends are dead' with a scowl down at his outfit.

Hermione smiled and mouthed back 'I know'.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**A/N: Just to warn you... It seems I'm not capable of writing much other than fluff at the moment, but if you wanted something serious, I think you would have given up on this story by now.**

**I'm all moved in now, it's all very exciting. Classes don't start until next week though, so I don't really have all that much to do this week.**

**Anyone else thinks the planet has started it's retaliation for all the crap we've been doing to it for the past few centuries? *hiding* I'm officially afraid to watch the weather network, it's all forest fires, floods, earthquakes, mud/rock slides and hurricanes at the moment.**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Thanks to Carrie as well for the suggestion, but I had already written this chapter when you sent it. I'm actually almost finished chapter 10, and I'm not sure if I'm nearing the end. I think this story might reach 30 000!**

**~Frosty**

"You've gone too far this time Malfoy!" Harry yelled as he ran into the head's common room waving a pineapple around. Draco started laughing the second he caught sight of the fruit.

"And what, pray tell, are you about to blame me for – falsely, might I add?" he asked the angry Gryffindor.

"RON! Ron's a _pineapple!" _ Harry roared as he sat his unfortunate friend down on the kitchen table.

Hermione wandered into the room to investigate the noise and looked at the boys gathered around a pineapple she was for some reason sure was Ron. "I always pictured him as something more in the melon family," she said to Draco, who nodded thoughtfully.

"You know, I think you're right," Draco told her, waving his wand and turning the Weasley into a cantaloupe. Hermione nodded in approval and left again, not bothering to get involved this time.

"What have you _done _to her?" Harry demanded, unable to believe that his uptight friend was just going to let this go on; she should have at _least_ gave them all a thorough scolding on why it was wrong to transfigure your friends into fruit.

"I haven't done anything; she's just lightened up a little."

He contemplated Harry for a second before waving his wand and turning the other boy into a pineapple. "Weasley's not much of a pineapple, but _you_ make a pretty good one, Potter," he told the pineapple as he arranged them artfully in the center of the table.

"You know you're going to have to change them back soon, don't you?" Hermione asked him from where she was leaning in the doorway of her bedroom. Draco looked up at her from the first floor and grinned mischievously at her.

"What'll you give me in exchange for your friends back?" Draco asked her slyly.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling; those two idiots got them in this mess and now she was supposed to get them out of it? "What do you want?" She asked in exasperation.

"How about a date?" She frowned; that didn't exactly sound horrible.

"Fine," she told him like she was doing him some huge favour. Draco grinned at her – he knew she was playing down the fact that she actually wanted to go. "Now change them back," she ordered, causing Draco's smile to fall right off of his face.

"I'm a Slytherin, I'm not going to change them back until we've had our date," Draco declared – he wasn't worried that she wouldn't hold up her end of the deal, he just wanted Potter and the Weasel to have a taste of what it's like the be a fruit, no pun intended.

"All right, but it's going to be today then," Draco nodded; that was a reasonable request, and doable.

He came back a few minutes later with his broom slung over his shoulder. "You're not going to do something sadistic like take me flying even though you know it terrifies me just so you're the only thing I'll have to cling onto for safety, are you?" Hermione asked the second she saw the broom.

"No... Not anymore."

"Good, because I would have insisted it go both ways. What's your biggest fear, Draco Malfoy?" She asked with an evil grin. Draco had no doubt that she would use it against him at some point, particularly if he mentioned taking her flying again.

He suddenly smirked. "Does that mean you want me to cling to you for safety?"

"At the moment, near me isn't exactly a safe place for you to be," she told him, elbowing him in the ribs and glaring.

Draco held his ribs and backed away, trying to think of something that wouldn't result in a new bruise.

Hermione watched him with amusement as he tried to think of something that she would like.

"Okay, close your eyes Hermione," Draco ordered without coming out of his room. Hermione obeyed him, figuring that he had some sort of surprise in mind.

He had a surprise all right... As soon as her eyes were closed, Draco grabbed her around the waist and jumped out a window with her, getting the broom underneath them both at the last second. He skilfully pulled up on the broom, making sure Hermione was secure behind him.

Hermione was frozen in terror from the second her eyes had snapped open when she felt Draco jump. The only thing she could do was hold on to him for dear life and plot the murder she was going to commit the second her feet touched the ground.

"Relax, we're fine," Draco tried to soothe her when he began to lose feeling in his ribs because she was holding onto him so tightly.

"_You're_ fine, if you fall off you can turn into your cute little owl that has _wings_, so you'll just fly away. If I fall, I'll be _falling_ until I _splat_ on the ground!" She screamed at him, holding on tighter when he turned the broom slightly.

"At least I've ensured that the clinging for safety happens," he muttered to himself, too quietly for his distraught passenger to hear.

"MALFOY! Land now!" Hermione yelled, squeezing him tighter for emphasis. He flinched, but ignored her; he had a destination in mind.

"TREES! Trees! There's trees below us, don't go down _now,_ we're going to crash!" Hermione screamed, panicking as they headed towards a small clearing in the forbidden forest.

Draco landed softy and skilfully on the forest floor, successfully manoeuvring around the few tree branches that crossed the sky above the clearing. Hermione was much the same as she was when she was changed into a four year old – she refused to let go, even when Draco told her they were on the ground.

"Hermione, you can let go now," Draco said, amused that she was being such a baby about a little flying – she had been perfectly safe, he had been in complete control of the broom the entire time.

Hermione hesitantly cracked open one eye, seeing that the ground was in fact only a few centimetres below her feet, she threw herself off the broom and whipped out her wand, pointing it at Draco.

"Give me one reason not to stupefy you and leave you here for what you just did!" She yelled at him.

Draco looked at their surroundings. "Because you have no idea how to get back to the castle without me?" He tried.

It became apparent that he had chosen the wrong answer when Hermione conjured a flock of canaries to chase him around the clearing. "Okay!" He shouted as he ran around the clearing with his arms over his head. "I'm sorry, all right?" Draco wasn't pleased that she had gotten an apology out of him; it was something he rarely did and almost never meant. It was also seen as a sign of weakness in many circles.

Hermione wasn't exactly happy, but seeing Draco run around from a few small birds had cheered her considerably. "Are you ready to see what I brought you here to see?" He demanded when he was sure there were no more feathered missiles on the way.

She shrugged. "I guess", she told him with an air of nonchalance.

Draco frowned at her; she was supposed to be overwhelmed with gratitude to even be spending time in his presence, not _launching _things at him. He didn't tell _her_ this though, he suspected she would either laugh at him or try and kill him for saying it.

He led the way a short distance in the forest, earning himself a smile when he held the branches out of Hermione's way as she walked behind him. "Okay, be quiet," he whispered as they approached their destination.

Hermione actually started to get excited about where they were going, now that the adrenaline rush had started to wear off. What could he possibly have to show her here in the middle of the forbidden forest?

Hermione ducked under the last tree branch and came out in a much smaller clearing, almost walking into the suddenly still form of Draco. "What is it?" She whispered, as she peeked around him.

Hermione gasped. Sitting in front of her was a creature that resembled a cat. It had white fur with orange speckles and a lion-like tail with an orange puff of fur at the end. It was adorable, but the litter of kittens sleeping around it were even more adorable.

"They're Kneazles," she whispered in wonder; she had never seen an actual full Kneazle, Crookshanks was as close as she had ever been to one, and he was only half-Kneazle.

The mother Kneazle blinked her eyes sleepily and looked around her little clearing to see what had disturbed her from her rest.

When she caught sight of Draco, she stood up and trotted over, purring. Draco smiled and reached down to her when she started twining around his legs. The kittens trotted over behind their mother and joined her in purring at Draco. He sat down and was immediately swarmed in the tiny, furry animals.

"Come on, sit down," Draco told Hermione, looking up at her from the ground.

She hesitantly came over and joined him, watching as the kittens became a little weary of her and hid behind him. The mother Kneazle came over and sniffed the hand Hermione offered her.

At the meow from their mother, the kittens came trotting over to swarm Hermione as well. Draco watched her fondly as she laughed with delight while the tiny Kneazles batted at strands of her hair that fell close to them.

"I thought Kneazles were an excellent judge of character," she told him, not looking away from the adorable kittens.

He looked confused. "They are," he told her, she was the know-it-all, wasn't she supposed to know these things?

"Well then why do they like _you_?"

Draco chuckled. "_You_ like me; you put more faith in a glorified _cat_ than in yourself?" The mother cat, who had been in Draco's lap the entire time swatted at him for that comment, but her heart wasn't in it.

Hermione laughed again at their antics. "How did you find these guys?" She asked as she affectionately messed up the fur on the head of one of the kittens.

"One winter night in third year I was wandering along the edge of the forbidden forest because I couldn't sleep, and I found this pathetic little bundle of fur that was shivering and meowing pathetically, so I brought it inside with me and got it some food." He stared off into space as he told his story, petting the mother Kneazle the whole time.

"Then when that sad little bundle of fur was warm and fed, she came and slept at the foot of my bed. You have no _idea_ how much Blaise laughed at me for that one... Being followed around by a kitten, like I was its foster mother or something." Hermione giggled a little bit at that, Blaise seemed to do an awful lot of laughing at Draco.

"Then in the spring when she was big enough to fend for herself, I brought her back out to the forest where I found her and set her free again. I still visit her every now and then when Blaise is too distracted to notice I'm gone and make fun of me for it," he motioned to the Kneazle in his lap. "Now that she's all grown up, it's her turn to take care of little balls of fluff."

Hermione started laughing, "You pretend to be all Malfoy-like, but you're actually just a big softie, aren't you?"

Draco scowled, but a kitten chose that moment to launch itself at his arm and climb up it to his shoulder, where it sat and smugly surveyed it's siblings below it. Hermione looked from the kitten to Draco's scowl until his face softened; it was hard to look menacing with a kitten perched awkwardly on your shoulder.

There was a sudden sound from somewhere else in the forest. All of the Kneazles looked up before running up a tree, the mother stopping to meow a warning at Draco. He was up and on his feet, pulling Hermione behind him before she had even had a chance to process what had happened.

"Run!" he yelled, pushing her in front of him and glancing nervously at the sky; it was starting to get dark - dark was a bad thing. Hermione was bewildered as to why one little twig snapping was causing the whole forest to freak out, but she figured Draco knew what he was doing and let him lead her towards safety.

They got to the broom and in the air just as a _very_ large spider burst out of the trees. "An Acromantula," Hermione said quietly; glad that they had gotten to safety in time, and then surprised that she had just thought of a _broom_ as safety.

"Their population's out of control this year," Draco yelled back to her as they gained altitude and sped over the forest. She tightened her grip on him as the broom ride started to feel less safe and more like the accident-waiting- to-happen it was.

Hermione was exceedingly grateful when the castle came back into view, but she had to close her eyes when it came time for Draco to carefully fly them back through the window he had jumped out of.

"Hermione!" Ginny screeched at her the second she was firmly inside and on the ground again.

"What's wrong, Ginny?" She asked, still a little shaky from the flight.

"Have you seen Harry and Ron? No one's seen them for _hours_," the redhead looked on the verge of panic, she was obviously too worried about them to wonder why Hermione had just _flown_ through a window on the back of Draco's broom.

Hermione walked over to the table her friends were resting on and looked over at Draco pointedly. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but waved his wand towards to fruity Gryffindors on the table.

Ron was curled up into a ball, looking as much like a melon as was humanly possible. The pineapple however, remained a pineapple.

Draco tried the spell again, looking a little annoyed that his wand work had been faulty. He started to look a little bit alarmed when his third attempt didn't work. He looked over to Hermione, "I don't think this pineapple is Potter," he told her.

Hermione started to panic; years of narrowly avoiding death and _she _was going to be the end of Harry! Forget Voldemort, he was in serious danger of someone _eating_ him, or chopping him up and cooking him on a ham, or, or... whatever else people did with pineapples!


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who favourited, reviewed, etc.!**

**I got sick yesterday, and am not yet better. Which is bad for me, but good for you guys, becaue I've done **_**nothing **_**for two days except write and edit... And read a little bit.**

**~Frosty**

Ron was starting to come out of the daze he had been in from the shock of changing so suddenly. Hermione and Ginny were both freaking out, and Draco was watching it all happen. Normally, this would have amused him, but since Hermione would see this as his fault and murder him if the boy-who-lived were to die, he had as much reason to want to find scar-head as the other two.

"What's going on?" Ron asked groggily as he looked around the room. The last thing he remembered, he'd been alone with Harry in the hallway, now he was in Hermione's common room and Harry was nowhere in sight. "Where's Harry?" He asked whoever was listening to him, which was no one as everyone else was too busy freaking out.

"We have to tell Dumbledore," Hermione said as she threw all of the cushions off of the couch, checking under them for Harry.

"Calm down, he'll turn up eventually," Draco tried to sooth her.

It was a mistake for him to speak up; she stopped her cushion search and rounded on him. "This is _your_ fault, if you had just changed him back when I _told_ you to, then he wouldn't be _missing_ right now," she yelled, poking him in the chest for emphasis.

Draco stepped away from the angry girl and rubbed the spot she had poked – it _hurt_.

Dumbledore walked into the room just as Draco was about to give a retort – probably one that would have just gotten him deeper into the trouble he was already in.

"I needed to borrow Mr. Potter for a minute, but I've returned him to the way he was when I found him; I didn't want to ruin whatever delightful game you children are playing so I replaced him with another pineapple. I do, however, feel that I need to remind you all that human transfiguration on your peers outside of a teacher's supervision is not allowed, and it wouldn't look very good if the head boy got detention," he warned with a pointed look at Draco. That said, he placed Harry the pineapple on the table and turned and walked out of the room without another comment.

Draco changed Potter back into his annoying self, then watched Hermione frantically replace the cushions onto the couches and chairs in the room for a second before he waved his wand and made them obediently fix themselves.

Harry stood with his arms above his head, looking as much like a pineapple as a human could look. "HARRY!" Ginny yelled, throwing herself at him.

"Umm... Ginny? I don't think Harry's supposed to be that shade of purple, maybe you should loosen your death-grip on him?" Hermione asked helpfully, she was seriously worried about Harry's breathing.

Ginny let up a little and Harry took a huge gasp of air. "Are you all right?" She asked him when his normal colour had returned.

Harry sighed. "Let's just go back to our dorms," he said tiredly, grabbing Ginny's hand and glancing back at Ron to make sure they were following.

"Bye Hermione," they all said as they closed the portrait hole beside them.

Hermione turned and headed off to her room, she'd had enough chaos for the day, and if she stayed in Draco's presence for much longer, she was pretty sure something else would happen – like she'd find out his biggest fear and see how _he _liked it.

"You're not going to walk me to my door and give me a kiss?" Draco asked, giving her puppy eyes. Hermione walked up to him, leaned closer, and then paused, contemplating.

"Are you going to kiss me already or not?" Draco demanded impatiently.

"I'm thinking... not. It'll be good for your ego to be deflated occasionally," she told him before turning away and heading towards her room.

A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him, twirling her against his chest. Draco kissed her soundly, then turned and went into his own room, smug that he had gotten what he wanted.

Hermione watched him leave with her hand against her tingling lips.

The next morning, Hermione decided that if Draco was going to jump out a window with her and nearly get her eaten by giant spiders in the forbidden forest, then she had to do _something_ to get him back. She wracked her brain for something that was simple and quick to do. Something that Draco hadn't seen before, something that would really freak him out...

Hermione grinned evilly when she finally thought of something to do – he wouldn't know what hit him.

Draco tried to walk out of his room, but he hit an invisible barrier and fell backwards on his butt. "Granger!" He yelled, casting as many counter curses as he could think of at the barrier. "What have you done? I can't reverse it!"

She appeared in the doorway and watched him with amusement before reaching out and removing the barrier with her hands. "It's not a spell you idiot, it's just plastic wrap and duct tape."

Draco was not familiar with this 'duct tape' she was speaking of, but he was pretty sure it was a substance born for great evil - it sounded like something he could use to his advantage in the future. He filed that away for later as he picked himself up off the floor with as much dignity as one can muster when one's just fallen on his arse – very little.

"Granger, that wasn't very nice," he tried to scold, but Hermione was laughing way too hard to seem properly contrite.

"Malfoy, you're never nice, so why should I be?" She asked him in the same scolding voice he had just unsuccessfully used on her.

"You're the woman; you should be gentle and polite to all around you," he informed her. If she had thought he actually believed that, Hermione would go out of her way to make sure he knew just how impolite and rough she could be. As it was, she just tackled him.

"I'll show you gentle and polite," she told him as she grabbed a pillow from his bed and proceeded to beat him with it. Draco half heartedly attempted to hold her off, but he was rather enjoying her weight on top of him and her laughter.

"What's that sound?" She suddenly asked; halting her feathery assault on Draco. They both held still and listened; a tapping was coming from the direction of the common room.

Draco pushed Hermione off of him and left his room to go investigate. He was slightly worried when he saw that it was his mother's owl – she didn't usually write him unless something was wrong or he was in trouble, and since he hadn't done anything to get himself in more trouble than the incident with Potter, he immediately assumed the worst.

He read over the letter quickly, relieved when he saw that nothing was wrong, but worried for a whole other reason. Hermione came into the room, presumably after having replaced his pillow on his bed.

Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath; what he was about to say was not going to go over very well. "Mother insists that you come visit her at the manor and teach her how to make your muggle pies... Apparently, she thought they were delicious the last time you hit her with them." He ducked a little the second he was finished, expecting some sort of fallout after his news.

"If I remember correctly – and I do – the pies hitting your parents was half your fault."

"Not the point Granger."

"There's no way I'm going to Malfoy Manor. Ever," she said firmly.

"Come on, where's your-"

"If you say Gryffindor courage, I'm shoving you out the window."

"Please? It'd make mother so happy," Draco was disgusted with himself that he had been lowered to begging, but he had promised himself he would _never_ wear anything involving a skirt again.

"You're just worried she's going to dress you up again."

"Yes I am! Think of the travesty you can help prevent by distracting my mother!"

"Travesty?" She asked him dryly.

"She might put me in a dress again! Anything interfering with my good looks on that magnitude is nothing short of a travesty!"

Hermione barely managed to suppress her laughter at the mental image his complaints painted; if he hadn't looked genuinely distressed, she would be in hysterics. "Please?" He tried again, making puppy eyes at her.

She scowled; she was weak against the puppy eyes and he knew it. "Dumbledore won't let us just _leave_ the school grounds to go visit your parents," she tried, doubtful that a determined Malfoy would let something like school policy get in their way, and though she hadn't been born one, Narcissa was a Malfoy now.

Draco waved his hand dismissively, "Technicalities. Mother has ways to get around that type of thing, but it doesn't matter anyway, she wants you to come for a visit once school's done" he told her, proving her suspicions correct.

Hermione rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "_If _I agreed to go, you would owe me big time," she warned.

Draco grinned, knowing she was about to give in. He nodded, acknowledging that he knew how much he would owe her if she did this for him.

"Fine," she sighed in resignation; having him owe her a favour once she did this could come in handy.

Draco's grin widened and he quickly hugged her. "Thank you. I promise it won't be as bad as you think it will," he tried to comfort her.

She leaned against him and sighed, she was too nice and he was Slytherin enough to take advantage of that.

"STOP HURTING HERMIONE!" Came a shout right before a spell hit Draco, knocking him across the room and into a wall.

"Ron!" Hermione whipped around and darted into the redhead's path as he made his way towards the crumpled Draco. She made a mental note to stop giving her friends the password to the head's common room; they could wait outside and knock like Draco made Blaise do now.

"RON!" She tried again, louder this time; Ron was a little thick when he was in one of his rages... and almost all of the rest of the time. Ron tried to move her out of his way, but she was stubborn and got back in his path.

"Do I _look_ hurt!" She demanded, raising her arms and turning a little so that Ron could see there was no blood anywhere on her.

He finally seemed to see reason and stopped his menacing advance towards poor Draco, who looked to have hit his head pretty hard on the wall if his dazed expression was anything to go on. "He... Wasn't hurting you?" He asked hesitantly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "No, Ron, he wasn't. While I appreciate the sentiment, I'm a big girl and can take care of myself," she told him as she walked over to Draco to see if he was all right.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" She asked Draco, kneeling at his side and helping him sit up.

"Seven?" He guessed. He must have been hit pretty hard if he thought she was holding up seven fingers on one hand...

"Wait... If he wasn't hurting you, what was he doing?" Ron asked, a little slow on the uptake, as usual.

"That's not important right now! We need to take him to the hospital wing."

Hermione got up off the floor, took both of Draco's hands, and attempted to pull him up off of the floor – attempted being the key word, he seemed to think she was trying to play some sort of game that involved hand pulling. Draco took Hermione by surprise when he tugged back on her hands, pulling her right over and into his lap.

"Draco, this really isn't the time for this," she whispered to him, glancing over at Ron, who was reaching for his wand again.

"Stop!" She yelled again. "Ronald, he's not himself right now because _someone_ launched him into a _wall_. Now can you use your brain for a second and _help_ me instead of just getting angry and taking it out on Malfoy?" She demanded, getting fed up with his hex first, ask questions later attitude. He was going to have to grow up and get over his petty little house rivalries one of these day, and sooner was better than later.

"You have pretty hair," Draco told her, patting the hair in question.

"And you're going to be mortified that Ron heard you say that," she told him, climbing out of his lap and looking to Ron. "Grab his other hand and help me pull him up," she ordered her friend.

Between the two of them, they managed to pull him up, but he seemed to have difficulty standing up, weaving from side to side. Hermione grabbed his arm and put it over her shoulder to help steady him while they walked to the hospital wing.

"I don't like you," Draco said to Ron, pointing slightly to the left of where Ron was actually walking. "Either of you," he continued as he pointed directly at Ron, worrying Hermione further; he was seeing double.

"What's happened _now_?" Madam Pomfrey asked in exasperation when they walked through the doors to the hospital wing.

"Malfoy hit his head," Ron said, looking away to hide the look of guilt that flashed across his face.

"Put him on the bed over there, beside Potter," Pomfrey ordered.

"Why's Harry here?" Ron asked while Hermione was focused on keeping Draco's hands out of her hair as she tried to help him get in the bed – he seemed fascinated with it and kept reaching towards it as she kept swatting him away.

"Mr. Potter there seems to be having some sort of identity crisis; he saw someone about to cut up a pineapple and snapped. He stole all the pineapples in the great hall and then retreated to the kitchens where he locked himself in a pantry with his 'spikey brethren', he should be fine, we just need to keep him here for observation until he decides to stop being a pineapple," Madam Pomfrey explained, indicating Harry lying in the bed next to Draco, with his arms up over his head and his fingers spread in his pineapple pose. "Now let`s take a look at Mr. Malfoy here," she said briskly as she felt Draco's head for lumps.

Hermione hovered anxiously at Draco's bedside while Ron walked over to Harry to see if he could get Harry to snap out of it. Madam Pomfrey walked over to a cabinet and took out a large bottle of a potion. She carefully measured a noxious looking sick green coloured potion into a glass and forced it down Draco's throat.

Draco blinked sleepily a few times before passing out against the pillows.

"Will he be all right?" Hermione asked, glancing worriedly at the head boy; he looked so helpless against the white pillows and without his smirk.

"He should be fine," Madam Pomfrey said impatiently as she put away the potion again. "I expect him to be awake within an hour or two," she told the worried girl.

Reassured, Hermione went over to check on Harry. "Are you all right?" She asked her friend. Harry didn't answer, just continued to hold his pineapple pose.

Ron and Hermione set in silence at Harry's bedside, Hermione occasionally shooting glares at Ron, who was avoiding her eyes.

When Draco started to stir, Hermione jumped up from her uncomfortable chair and waited for him to focus enough to see her.

Draco blinked owlishly at the brunette hovering at his bedside. "Are you all right, Draco?" She asked anxiously.

He stared at her for almost an entire minute before hesitantly asking, "Who are you?"

"I'm, I'm Hermione. Don't you remember me?" She asked, looking vulnerable and scared.

"No, should I?" He asked with a confused look.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**A/N: Surprise! My humour changed again. You ever have a day where the smallest little things really upset you? Hermione's having one of those days here, in case you think she's being all... Moody. This chapter seems more serious than the other ones... I'm feeling better! Mostly. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, etc.**

**I've just started classes today, but I should be able to update regularly for a few more chapters at least because at the moment, I'm ahead a few. For those of you waiting for an update of Drinking Doesn't Solve Anything, it might be a few days, maybe even a week, I'm stuck again.**

**Also! I am a vegetarian... Sort of, have been for years. I eat nothing with legs, which means I eat fish. Which means I **_**like**_** fish. Draco's thoughts on fish are not my thoughts... Just in case anyone gets defensive of the poor, delicious fish.**

**~Frosty**

_Last chapter:_

_He stared at her for almost an entire minute before hesitantly asking, "Who are you?"_

"_I'm, I'm Hermione. Don't you remember me?" She asked, looking vulnerable and scared._

"_No, should I?" He asked with a confused look._

Hermione went completely white and rushed from the room. He didn't remember her! How soap opera was that? Going into a coma and then waking up not remember the person he... occasionally showed affection to? Great, now she had something else to worry about, other than wondering when or _if_ he was going to get his memory back: what was she to him?

The nice, quiet, comforting library would have been an ideal place for her to retreat to, but Hermione didn't want to be found at the moment, so she went to one of the last places someone would ever look for her: the Slytherin common room.

As head girl, Hermione had the password to all of the house common rooms, so it was only a matter of remembering the Slytherin one and walking in. A few Slytherins glanced up as she entered, but no one commented; they were Slytherins, they'd watch her until they knew why she was here, and then use it against her; they wouldn't actually actively stop her from coming in. She looked around the room, spotting the person she was looking for.

Blaise had watched her enter the Slytherin common room for what was most likely the first time. She saw him and made her way over to his spot by the fire – he had been using some of his spare time to finish an essay that was due in potions the next day.

"Zabini, can I hide here for a while?" She asked, obviously desperate for somewhere to hide.

Blaise raised his eyebrows. "What kind of Gryffindor hides from something, and in the Slytherin common room of all places?" he asked her.

She just shook her head to show that she didn't want to talk about it. Blaise shrugged and indicated the spot on the couch beside him. Sighing in relief, Hermione plopped down and buried her head in her hands.

* * *

Draco watched the colour drain from Hermione's face as it crumpled into a horrified expression. He was still a little slow from sleep, so it didn't register that he had done something monumentally stupid until she turned and fled from the room. He brought a hand over his eyes and groaned – pretending he didn't know who she was hadn't been the best idea.

To be fair, he hadn't been in a condition that would induce peak mental clarity – quite the opposite, in fact. That and he was a moron. A complete and utter moron who didn't deserve Hermione's forgiveness – that small fact wasn't going to stop him from trying to get it, but he still didn't deserve it.

Done berating himself, he swung his legs out of the bed and slowly got up – he wasn't sure if he was steady on his feet yet. Finding he was suitably stable, Draco took off out of the hospital wing, stopping when he realized that he had no idea where in the school she could be hiding. Weasley was yelling something after him, but he didn't follow, so Draco ignored him.

He searched every place she could possibly be, he even lowered himself to go into the Gryffindor common room to see if she was hiding there, but no such luck – though he was going to need to have a shower to get all the... red and gold off.

It was very late when Draco finally gave up and retreated to the Slytherin common room to find Blaise – when he wasn't laughing at him, Blaise could actually be helpful sometimes. He burst into the common room and looked around the vacant room, the only occupant was Blaise.

Spotting him sitting in the chair he usually sat in Draco made his way across the room and dropped gracelessly into the adjacent chair, flinging an arm over his eyes. "Blaise, I did something stupid," he groaned from under his arm.

"I've heard," Blaise told his distraught friend, glancing at Granger beside him.

"I searched the entire school and I can't _find_ her!"

"What would you tell her if you found her?" The crafty Slytherin asked his friend; if those two didn't end up together, he stood to lose quite a bit of gold.

"I'd say I was... addled, I thought it would be funny to play a trick on her as revenge for that duct tape stuff," Draco knew Blaise had no idea what he was talking about, but it made him feel a little better to _say_ what he had been planning to tell her.

"And?" Blaise prompted.

"And that I was... sorry," Draco mumbled. He still had trouble saying the 's' word; it left a bad taste in his mouth, the taste of remorse – and fish, that stuff was nasty, all slimy and... fishy.

Hermione had ducked down and fallen asleep after coming to visit Blaise, slipping down the couch until she was hidden from everyone behind her by the back of the couch. When Draco had dropped into the chair, she had blinked awake in time to hear the friends talking.

She realized that it hadn't actually been something all that bad that he had done, it had been stupid, but there had been no malicious intent behind the small prank. "Apology accepted," she told Draco, startling him into falling out of his chair.

"You were hiding in the Slytherin common room!" He asked her disbelievingly from the ground as he picked himself up again.

Hermione looked towards the floor, a little bit embarrassed about her overreaction to Draco's poor excuse for a joke. "I searched the entire school for you while I was avoiding Potter and Weasley – they didn't hear what I said, but they blamed me for your disappearance!" Draco continued, starting to sound a little bit angry.

She looked up from the floor to glare at him. "I overreacted, but you don't get to yell at me!" She snapped, turning on her heel and storming out of the room.

Draco turned to Blaise, "Has she gone mad, or are we in some sort of alternate universe?" He asked his friend.

"Whatever her problem is, you should probably go after her," he encouraged. Draco sighed, but took the advice.

For the second time that night, he was standing in an empty hallway looking both ways and wondering where in the world Hermione could have run off to; it was like an incredibly annoying game of cat and mouse. Speaking of cats... Draco watched as Hermione's orange monster peeked at him around the corner and meowed at him expectantly. "You know where she is?" He asked it, immediately berating himself for talking to the animal. To his surprise, the cat nodded – it must really be half Kneazle, with the intelligence of one and everything.

He figured he had nothing to lose; the direction the cat led him in would be as good as any he could guess. "All right, lead the way," he told it with resignation, beyond worried about his sanity at the moment. At this point, he just wanted to know Hermione was somewhere where she would be safe and then he could go to bed.

The cat lead him to the entrance hall, he gave it a skeptical look as it watched him from the door, which it obviously expected him to open for it. "If you just want to go outside to chase something or some shite like that, I'm going to make sure you're never allowed in the head's common room again," he threatened the cat, then scowled as he realized he'd just threatened a cat.

It was still cold for May, Draco shivered a little as he opened the doors and was hit with a gust of icy wind. He cast a warming charm on himself and hoped that Hermione had thought to do the same for herself if she was really out there somewhere. The cat rushed ahead of him and disappeared into the night, before trotting back and looking at him expectantly again until he followed it.

The persistent feline led him over to the shore of the lake, where he found Hermione huddled on the ground, looking out over the rough surface of the dark water. He walked over to her and sat down beside her. "Nice weather we're having today," he said, indicating the waves and cold wind.

Hermione chuckled quietly, and then shivered at the reminder of the cold. "I overreacted again, didn't I?" She asked him, still looking out over the water.

Draco wasn't sure if it was safe to answer her, she might run away, or stab him or something. She didn't expect an answer though, she just continued. "I spent the day wondering what I am to you," she told him morosely.

He opened his mouth to tell her, but she stopped him by raising a hand. "Don't. Just... Help me up?" She asked holding her hands out in front of her. Draco gave her a funny look – what was _with_ her today? He grabbed her hands and pulled her up into a hug.

"I'm sorry I was a git today," he told her, feeling how cold she was – apparently she hadn't had the common sense to cast a warming charm on herself. For someone who was supposed to be so level headed, she certainly had her moments of senselessness – maybe it was a girl thing. His internal voice flinched at that last thought, almost like it could sense the beating he would get if he even suggested it.

Hermione leaned into the warmth Draco was offering and sighed; she hadn't realized how cold she was getting until she had something warm to compare it to. It suddenly mattered a lot less what he thought of her; he'd run after her, hadn't he? She opened her eyes and looked up at him, her chin leaning on his chest, "How did you find me?" she asked.

"Your monster of a cat," he said, looking down at her. She looked away quickly to sneeze. "Time for you to get inside, Granger," he told her, using her last name in an attempt to seem less... soft. He was, after all, a Malfoy, he couldn't just come find her because he was worried and then say something considerate, it had to go against all kinds of laws of nature for him to be consistently nice.

Draco was pretty sure he was in some sort of denial, but it made him feel better to think he still upheld _some_ of the Malfoy family rules... The ones that didn't involve kissing muggleborns and saving kittens – those had been special circumstances. He spent a second going through all of the family rules, hoping one still applied to him. Great hair! A sigh of relief escaped him as he realized no matter how many rules he broke, he would always have great hair; it was comforting to know some things would never change - they might be turned green, but nothing could ruin them.

Hermione listened to Draco's suggestion, and they headed back towards the castle with Crookshanks leading the way, tail in the air like some kind of banner.

"So, we going to blame Weasley for this whole mess?" Draco asked as he opened the castle door for them.

Hermione perked up and grinned at him. "To be fair, he thought he was protecting me," she told him. Draco raised an eyebrow; he knew her better than that.

She started laughing, "Yah, I didn't think you'd buy that. I already have a plan," she told him right before she had another sneezing fit.

Draco slung an arm around her shoulders – purely to keep her warm, of course. She leaned against him and smiled. "You know, you could have just cast a warming charm on me," she said.

"Where's the fun in that?"

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Gryffindor dorms:

"What do you mean she said he wasn't attacking her?" Harry asked Ron while Ginny watched them try and comprehend the situation. They had been at this since Harry suddenly snapped out of his pineapple identity crisis, right after Malfoy chased Hermione out of the hospital wing.

"I don't know... But he was awfully close to her to not be hurting her," Ron told his friend; wondering why his sister was finding this all so amusing.

"Show us what he was doing," Ginny commanded, pushing Harry out of his seat towards her brother. Ron awkwardly put his arms around Harry while Ginny started laughing.

"What's so funny?" Harry asked, peeking at her over Ron's shoulders.

"That looks an awful lot like a hug, does it not?" Ginny asked the two of them. She watched their faces as they tried to comprehend a situation that would involve Malfoy, their friend, and a hug.

"Nope. There's no way that's what it was, he was probably trying to take her wand so he can give it to his death eater father or something," Harry insisted. Ginny smiled indulgently; they were so cute when they were in denial.

"If they were so close, then what did he say to her in the hospital wing that made her run away?" Ron demanded, sure he had thought of something she hadn't.

"I said it was a hug you walked in on, I didn't say he wasn't Malfoy anymore. He's a moron, he probably said something stupid and senseless that hurt her feelings." Ron wasn't likely to believe this, but Ginny knew it was probably what happened – Malfoy really was a moron a lot of the time.

Harry and still looked doubtful, and Ron was starting to look a little bit mad. Ginny frowned at him; he'd had his chance with Hermione and never took it, he wasn't allowed to be angry that she'd found someone that could make her happy, even if it was Malfoy.

"How about this, you two go over there right now and _ask_ them what it was you saw. Ron, you can apologise while you're there before Malfoy does something in retaliation and someone ends up dead," Ginny tried; Hermione could deal with their insanity so she could go to bed, she had been trying to talk reason to her idiot brother for way too long.

Ron looked at Harry to see what his friend thought of this idea; he was a little bit scared of what Hermione was going to say to him – the girl could be _scary_ sometimes, and she'd already told him that Malfoy hadn't been hurting her, but he refused to accept the alternative, it was just too disturbing. Harry shrugged; maybe Hermione would have a simple explanation and then they'd be able to forget this madness.

"Okay, let's go ask Hermione," Ron said. Ginny sighed in relief; she could go to bed now.

They got up and headed to the portrait hole as Ginny slipped away and retreated to her room. "Maybe she stole his hair gel and he was checking her pockets to get it back," Harry was suggesting as they opened the portrait.

They both froze in the doorway at what they saw outside: Hermione with Malfoy's arm around her shoulders as she leant against him and smiled up at him, they were also frozen, looking in horror at the Gryffindor boys both watching them.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**A/N: Classes have started and they're making me read ridiculous amounts, it's depressing and leaves me less time to write. I'm only a chapter ahead in this story now, but I know where I'm going with it. I hope to get it done before I have to start writing essays and midterm exams come to eat up all my remaining spare time.**

**If there's any mistakes in the editing, blame it on the Kraft Dinner (Or Kraft macaroni and cheese or whatever the heck it's called in places that aren't Canada) I'm trying to cook **_**and**_** edit. My 'r' key had been evil lately, so if I'm missing one somewhere, that's why.**

**~Frosty**

Draco was the first one to move, he stepped away from Hermione and whipped out his wand, just in case Weasley thought he was about to put her in a headlock or something else moronic.

At the sight of the blond's wand, Harry and Ron whipped out their wands as well; there was no telling what Malfoy could try when he felt threatened. "Hermione, get away from him!" Ron yelled at the exasperated brunette.

Hermione rolled her eyes and looked to the ceiling for patience before taking out her own wand and pointing it at her friends; maybe if she made it really obvious that he wasn't going to hurt her, then Ron would get it through his thick skull that she wasn't in any danger from Draco – except perhaps danger from practical jokes or falling to her deaths on impromptu dates.

She stepped beside Draco and pointed her wand at her friends. "Harry, he's got her under the imperious curse!" Ron yelled to his friend, once again with his voice at an inappropriately loud volume for their location and situation.

"Ron, I'm not under any curse," she sighed.

"Even I doubted that one, mate," Harry told the redhead apologetically.

"Now, I'm only going to say this once more Ronald: Draco was _not_ hurting me," she explained slowly, pointing to Draco and then herself for emphasis.

"But Hermione, he's a death eater!" Ron exclaimed.

Hermione glared daggers at her friend; if Draco was a death eater, did he really think she'd be anywhere near him? Or that Dumbledore would let him in the school? She pointed her wand at Ron and used the spell she and Draco had been planning for their revenge at a later date – they could think up something else easily.

Harry watched in horror as Ron shrunk from his formidable height to about 10cm tall.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?" Tiny Ron yelled in some kind of tiny rage, stomping around on the ground and reaching his arms up towards the ceiling as if that would make him taller again.

"His volume suits the situation when his vocal chords are that size," Hermione observed with satisfaction. Ron's voice was quieter than their talking voices and he was yelling as loud as he could. She picked him up by the back of his robes and held him at her eye level.

"He is not now and he will never be a death eater Ronald. You need to start trusting my judgement and stop jumping to conclusions. Your temper is going to get you in real trouble one day," she scolded him.

Draco watched with admiration as she scolded the tiny, angry redhead. He glanced over at Potter to see how he was taking this whole thing, and was surprised to see him looking amused – it seemed that Hermione wasn't the only member of the trio who was getting fed up with the Weasel's outbursts.

When Hermione had finished scolding him and set him on the ground again, the temperamental Gryffindor was looking almost contrite. It wasn't going to be any fun if there was no lasting psychological trauma.

"Now he has a legitimate reason to fear spiders, their webs would actually catch him at that size," Draco mused out loud; watching with satisfaction as the tiny eyes widened with horror and he ran over to Potter's pant leg, clinging to it as if it would be some sort of protection against the absent spiders. Ah, _there_ was the lasting psychological trauma.

Hermione and Harry were ignoring the other two's interaction at the moment. "I'm going to trust your judgement on this one," Harry said, weary of Hermione's wand. He turned to the blond, "But if you ever hurt her, you're as good as dead. Do you understand, Malfoy?"

Draco nodded seriously. "If I ever hurt her, I'll deserve it," he told scarhead honestly. Harry nodded and picked up Ron before heading off to the hospital wing.

Draco looked at Hermione with admiration. "That was brilliant," he told her with a grin. Then he turned a little more serious. "Thanks for having so much faith in me," he told her, kissing her on the cheek.

"Please. We both know you're not a death eater, you save kittens and hate it when small children cry," she told him dismissively. He really would be a horrible death eater; he just didn't have the sociopath tendencies that were a prerequisite for the position. Maybe they had death eater secretaries? Draco could probably handle evil paperwork.

"It's mostly just _you _I can't stand to see crying, whether you're four or not," he told her defensively; he could be evil if he wanted to. He could! The Weasley twins were probably still jumping at shadows after his father had got to them – now _that _was evil. He wistfully thought about what it must be like for his father to be that evil so seemingly effortlessly. All of that evil didn't seem to stop mother from terrorizing father just like she did with him though, so maybe father wasn't as evil as he liked to pretend he was.

Hermione was touched that her tears upset him that much. She wasn't going to tell him that though – he would probably get embarrassed and deny he'd ever said anything that mushy and soft. Her smile at him was interrupted by another sneezing fit, reminding Draco that they were on their way to bed so that Hermione didn't get a cold or something else equally unpleasant.

He gave her a pointed look before leading her towards the head dormitories, only retreating to his own bed once he was sure the fire was burning brightly and warmly in her room. Hermione fell asleep that night content with the way things had turned out, and all cozy tucked into her warm bed in her warm room.

* * *

Draco woke up the next morning feeling like death. All that work to keep Hermione from getting sick and he was the one who got the cold? He probably should have given himself a similar treatment to the one he had given her as a precaution. After all, he had been out in the cold as well.

As he reached for the covers to pull them over his head and block out the sunlight, he noticed something odd marring his usually flawless skin; red spots. Worried, Draco jumped out of bed and lifted up his pyjama shirt – they were there too! What in the world were there things? Had someone cursed him when he was sleeping?

"Granger!" He shouted; this better not have been her doing.

Hermione heard the panic in Draco's voice and came running, abandoning the breakfast she had been eating in their common room. She paused in the doorway when she saw him. "Why are you covered in spots?"

Draco glared. "I don't _know_, but they're itchy," he told her, having just realized how itchy he was - _everywhere_.

"It looks like chicken pox to me," Hermione told him, coming closer to examine some of the spots on his arm. Reaching a hand out, she felt his forehead. "I think you have a fever, you should go to the hospital wing," she ordered.

Ignoring her order, Draco frowned. "What kind of hex is 'chicken pox'?" he asked, feeling his nose just in case it had morphed into some kind of beak, then worriedly patting his hair to make sure it was still hair instead of feathers. Reassured that the spots seemed to be the only things visibly out of place, he looked expectantly at Hermione, waiting for her answer.

"It's not a hex of any sort; it's a muggle illness that can actually be quite dangerous if you get it when you're older. You should go to the hospital wing," she told him again, glad that she'd had it when she was young, and so was immune to it now.

Draco was hesitant to go out where people would see him in this condition, but Hermione was persistent and her voice was grating on the headache he was developing. It didn't take her and her grating voice very long at all to convince him he needed to seek medical help.

"Oh my, what do we have here?" Madam Pomfrey asked when he shuffled into the hospital wing, closely followed by an anxiously hovering Hermione.

"I think it looks like chicken pox, but I'm not positive," Hermione answered for him as he gratefully collapsed onto one of the hospital beds – the walk over had been surprisingly exhausting, but luckily, only a few people had seen him, most students were in the great hall eating breakfast at the moment.

"I think you may be right Miss. Granger," the mediwitch told Hermione as she examined Draco for herself.

Draco was confused, and the fever and headache weren't helping very much. "Does this mean I'm going to turn into a chicken?" He asked, a little bit worried because the two women were being so serious.

"No, no. Nothing like that, you're just going to be sick for a day, and then itchy for a week. This potion will reduce the time you're ill, but I can't make you completely better," Pomfrey told him regretfully as she poured a potion out into a goblet for him to drink.

Hermione watched as he drank the vile looking potion with minimal fuss and then dropped off to sleep almost immediately. "Is he going to be all right?" She asked the mediwitch worriedly.

Madam Pomfrey nodded absently. "He'll feel horrible today, but he should make a full recovery," she told the girl absently, focused on the form she was filling out.

Hermione had turned to the door to head off to her classes, reassured that Draco was going to be fine when the healer stopped her. "You've had these chicken pox before, haven't you, Miss. Granger?" She asked, probably worried that Hermione was going to fall ill as well. She explained that she'd had them as a child and then left.

Madam Pomfrey glanced up after she had left and wondered if she should have warned the girl that the potion the Malfoy boy had taken might make him more contrary than he usually was. It contained an ingredient that made the recipient think that everyone around them was their enemy. She dismissed this thought though, Miss. Granger was already gone and she had more important things to do than chase after her.

* * *

The first thing Hermione did the second her classes were finished was go to the hospital wing to check on poor Draco. "Draco, are you all right?" She asked quietly when she saw how pale he looked.

"Granger?" He seemed confused as to why Hermione was coming to visit him. "I have a muggle disease," he complained, seeming to have forgotten that he was confused about the person he was talking to.

"I know," she told him sympathetically; she really did feel bad for him, he wasn't used to muggle illnesses and waiting them out to heal. He was more used to the immediate fixes that were out there for most wizard ailments.

Draco seemed t realize who he was talking to again. "You're a muggle born," he observed aloud.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, not sure where he was going with the observation.

"This is your fault! I've caught some sort of muggle disease and now I'm _dying_!" He accused her dramatically. Hermione was a little hurt that he still thought about her like that; like some sort of disease carrying mudblood.

"I know you're sick and not thinking right, so I'm not going to get mad at you, just know the things you're saying are hurtful," she told him, doing her best to keep her voice steady.

"I'm thinking just fine! You're a disease carrying mudblood!" He snapped at her. Hermione fought the urge to run from the room; fever only accounted for so much, it sounded like he really meant those things.

"Never speak to me again!" She yelled at him, fighting tears as she gave into the urge to flee. If he was going to say hurtful things like that, than whatever they'd had up until that point had been a lie. The hallways were thankfully empty of people as she made her way back to her dorms where she could wallow in her sorrow in peace.

* * *

When Draco got out of the hospital wing two days later, still itchy but without a fever, he went straight to the head dorms to see why Hermione hadn't come to visit him even _once _while he was sick. What he didn't realize was that she had come to visit while he was delirious and now she was avoiding him.

Blaise met him outside of the head dorms; he had been waiting until his friend was better before he confronted him. "What did you _say_ to Granger?" he demanded the second Draco was near enough that he could speak without everyone overhearing.

"I didn't say anything, I haven't even _seen_ her since she took me to the hospital wing the other day," Draco told him, wondering what in the world was going on – it seemed like everyone had gone mental. Or maybe just Hermione.

"Well, you said something, she's been miserable looking sine you were sent to the hospital wing, and I don't think it's concern for you well being..."

Draco opened the portrait hole and let Blaise in behind him, they both watched in confusion as she glanced up at them from the couch where she was reading before getting a panicked look and fleeing into her room, locking the door behind her.

"Still think you didn't say anything?" Blaise asked him dryly.

Draco stared after Hermione in disbelief before shaking his head. "Are they ever going to make any sense?" He asked his friend.

"Gryffindors? No. That lot's mental," Blaise told him.

"I was talking about women," Draco said, exasperated that Blaise was so focused on the Gryffindor thing; it was so first year.

"They're mental too," Blaise said with a shrug.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**A/N: Don't you just hate when you wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and you have the choice of forgetting the idea and going back to sleep or waking up enough to turn the computer on and writing it down? Or am I the only one who does this?**

**Special thanks to cjnicole and oOSnowFoxOo, my two reviewers from last chapter! **

**I've been putting all the energy that went into my stories before school started into getting the huge amount of readings they gave me finished on time. The chapters I've been ahead have kind of run out... So I have most of the next one finished and then you might have to wait longer.**

**~Frosty**

To Draco's frustration, Hermione continued to avoid him for the next few months. The end of school was rapidly approaching, and he had yet to have a single conversation with her; not that he hadn't tried to talk to her – he had. After discovering that something was up with her, he had attempted on several occasions to talk with her, but she wouldn't even stay still long enough to hear him out, she'd just run from the room.

Eventually he decided that if she didn't want to talk to him, fine. He wasn't going to chase her around like a first year Hufflepuff. He was Draco Malfoy for Merlin's sake, who did she think she was ignoring him?

Hermione on the other hand, was quite distraught; she had decided that if he was going to think of her as nothing more than a carrier of germs and bad blood, then she wasn't going to think about or speak to him anymore. This was easier said than done; he kept _finding_ her! It didn't help that they were living together, but she worked hard to be head girl and wasn't about to give it up for _Malfoy_.

She was relieved when he finally gave up trying to speak to her and they went back to how they were before the whole incident with the Weasley twins happened – they were able to work together, but didn't really associate beyond that.

The last day before summer vacation found Hermione sitting on one of the couches looking around her common room sadly, this was the last time she'd ever be at Hogwarts – as a student anyway; she might visit sometime in the distant future if she were too feel nostalgic or even in the _very_ distant future to see her own children here.

She didn't acknowledge that she saw Malfoy walking out of his room and towards the portrait hole, but she did look sadly at his back as he pulled his trunk out of the head dorms to go wait in the great hall with everyone else. She was going to miss talking to him – he may have been a major prejudiced git, but she'd had fun with him. Thinking that she would never see him again was unrealistic – the wizarding world was too small – but it would never be the same as it was here at Hogwarts, there was just something magical about the place.

She sighed as she looked around the room she had called home for the past year; she was going to miss Hogwarts. "You need to tell me what happened between you and Malfoy already, you both looked like you sucked on something sour today," Ginny told her as she came into the room, interrupting Hermione's minute of melancholy.

"I told you, nothing happened. I just realized he didn't think any differently of me now than he did when he was an eleven year old pureblood brat obsessed with blood supremacy," she told the meddling redhead as flippantly as she could manage.

"Hermione..." Ginny started; they were both being ridiculous and needed to just _talk_ to each other and sort this whole mess out.

Hermione jumped up from her seat and moved to her room to get her own trunk – anything to avoid another lecture from Ginny; she just couldn't seem to understand that it was better this way, her and Draco weren't meant to be.

Ginny sighed as she watched her friend walk away from her. Hermione needed to cheer up, she had been so down in the last few months – just last week Ron had done something monumentally stupid and Hermione didn't even have the spirit to lecture him on it. Something had to be done.

She pasted a big smile in her face and linked her arm with Hermione's when the brunette came out of her room, her trunk in tow. "We're going to do something _fun_ this summer," Ginny declared, determined to cheer Hermione up.

"Like what?" Hermione asked, doubtfully.

"Well, you're done school and this is my last summer off, let's take a break before we have to be responsible and all that crap."

Hermione raised a skeptical brow, amused at Ginny's attempts. "So you want to do something irresponsible with me? Me, the one who _always_ has to be the responsible one?" Ginny nodded, that was _exactly_ what she was talking about.

"Exactly!" Ginny exclaimed, practically bouncing as she walked.

Hermione rolled her eyes at her friend's enthusiasm. "Okay, okay. Owl me when you think of what you want us to do," she told the still bouncing redhead – the girl needed to take a calming draught or something, she was a little out of control with the enthusiasm.

* * *

"What are you planning to do now that you're finished Hogwarts?" Hermione's mother asked as she edged the brochures for top universities closer to her daughter. Mr. Granger chuckled as he watched his wife; she had been insisting Hermione needed to get into a good college since the girl was about five years old.

Hermione rolled her eyes, elbowed the brochures back towards her mother and then went back to her cereal. It was too early for this kind of crap; she had been home from Hogwarts for all of one night and now her mother had started harassing her about what she needed to do next with her life.

"What _are_ you thinking of doing?" Her dad asked her; he was a little more understanding that she might not want to get into a muggle university. She had a foot in two worlds and needed to decide which one she was going to spend more of her time in. The first ten years of her life had been entirely muggle and the next seven had been surrounded by the wizarding world at Hogwarts, picking one was not going to be an easy decision for her.

* * *

Meanwhile:

"Draco." A voice called, causing the retreating blond to cringe slightly and walk faster, praying she was going to think he didn't hear and give it up. No such luck.

"Draco!" She said again, more firmly this time. He rolled his eyes and turned around to face one of the few people who would dare ordering him around and managed to strike fear in him on occasion – his mother.

"Yes, mother?" He asked as he shifted the broom he was carrying to his other shoulder, hoping she would get the hint and let him leave.

"I've really been craving those muggle pies you hit your father and I with. When are you going to get that Granger girl to come over here and show me how to make them?" She asked him as she rubbed her rounded stomach.

Draco took a step back from his mother – she was pregnant and hormonal, which made her very very volatile as of late. "I'm not sure sending me to get her would be the best idea, we're not on the best terms." He tried, hoping it would deter her.

"Is that why you've been moping around the manor since you've been home?" She demanded.

Draco frowned at her; of course that wasn't the reason... Mostly. His reason for moping was that in the time he had been gone, the manor had been taken over by a hormonal maniac woman who had been harassing the poor Malfoy men nonstop with her demands. Father deserved it, this sibling was _his_ fault, but Draco felt that he should be exempt from this insanity – if he had any say, staying an only child would suit him just fine. But he didn't, and now he was reduced to slinking around and hoping that mother didn't catch him and send him off on some _ridiculous_ task like going to fetch Granger so she could learn how to bake pies!

"No mother, it isn't," he said tightly, reminding himself it wasn't her fault she had turned into some kind of dictator, it was the hormones... And this younger sibling that was sure to hear about all the trouble he or she caused before she was even _born_. If this was any indication of what the next several years were going to be like with it as a sibling, then Draco was going to move out as soon as possible.

"You teenagers are so moody," she told him with a frown, having picked up on the tightness in his voice. Draco rolled his eyes – _he_ wasn't the moody one. "I was thinking we could start baking immediately, so I need you to pick her up now," she told him briskly, like she was just asking him to hand her the peas.

He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to think of a way out of this that wouldn't end in him getting yelled at or cried on. "Mother, I'm not sure Granger would _want_ to come here..." He started, pausing when he saw the face she was making at him.

"Are you ashamed of your mother?" She asked him sadly, looking up at him with puppy eyes. It took a great physical effort to hold in the groan that wanted to escape; it was beginning.

"Mother, it's not –"

"Do you not want to make me happy?" She tried again, the tears were starting now.

"Mother, it's not that," he awkwardly patted her shoulder, trying to soothe her before the all out waterworks started, but it was too late.

"Okay! I'm going to get her now!" He exclaimed; _anything_ to escape the madhouse the manor had become.

Narcissa smiled as she watched her son scramble for the floo powder, he was just like his father; completely helpless when it came to tears.

* * *

Hermione and her parents were still sitting at the table and discussing her future when the fireplace in the next room blazed to life before spitting out a ruffled Draco.

When she saw who it was that came to visit, Hermione went from mildly irritated at her parent's questioning to furious in a second. She jumped up from her chair and stormed into the living room with her wand out; how _dare_ he come back here, was he visiting to insult her and her parents in their own home?

"What do you want, Malfoy?" She snarled as she pointed her wand at his chest. Her parents looked on with confusion – was this not the same boy she had seemed to get on so well with during Easter break? They followed her into the room and stood behind her – when in doubt, solidarity with the one who seemed to know what they were doing was usually best.

Draco held up his hands, showing that he didn't even have his wand out. He was hoping that showing he was unarmed would stop her from hexing him. Leave it to his mother to make him get over his pride and talk to Granger again; sure he was weary of the angry Gryffindor, but he was terrified of his mother lately. "Mother insisted I come over here to invite you to make pies with her," he told the girl, expecting this information to go over even worse than he'd been anticipating when he first told her about it – she'd liked him then.

Hermione's mother answered for her. "She'd _love_ to!" She said enthusiastically, clapping her hands and completely ignoring the atmosphere. Hermione stared at the woman with her mouth open; what in the world was she thinking? Draco was thinking something along the same lines.

Mrs. Granger ignored the looks she was getting and whipped around to go get the spare cans of pie filling she had bought while Mr. Granger watched his wife go into the kitchen before looking back at the two teenagers in the room, if his little girl was going to kill someone, he wanted to be there to help dispose of the body. He had never liked the blond one; he was up to no good from the start.

"I would _not_ love to!" Hermione shouted after her mother without looking away from the idiot at the end of her wand.

"What did I do to make you hate me again all of a sudden!" Draco demanded, frustrated with all of this nonsense. They had been doing so well and then _this_.

Hermione lowered her wand a fraction and tilted her head. Did he genuinely not remember anything that he'd said?

Draco was glad she was looking slightly less hostile, but a little worried about the new placer her wand was pointing. "Umm, do you think you could raise the wand back up to my chest please, I'd really rather you didn't hit me where you're pointing," he asked her carefully; now was not the time to anger her. He glanced over at Mr. Granger, who was actually looking hopeful – maybe _that_ was where Hermione got her evil streak.

Hermione suddenly pocketed her wand and grabbed Draco's wrist, dragging him behind her and up to her room. He wasn't going to question this sudden mood swing; no one was pointing a wand at him anymore, so this was working for him much better.

Her room looked a lot like the one at Hogwarts had, tidy except for the books stacked everywhere with a Gryffindor comforter on the bed. He sat down nervously on the edge of the bed as he watched her rustle around in the closet looking for something.

"Got it!" Hermione said triumphantly as she found what she was looking for, her pensive. She was going to _show_ him what he'd said to her.

Reliving the memory as she put her wand to her head was almost as bad a living it the first time, except this time, she was less sure that he meant it – he was here in her muggle home for the second time to ask her to come to Malfoy manor with him, which didn't seem like something you do to someone you considered below you and worthless.

She placed the silvery wisps of her memory and placed it in the pensive before handing it over to the confused looking Malfoy. "You know how to use a pensive, right?" She asked him as she thrust the pensive bowl into his lap.

Draco was still a little bit confused; why did he need the pensive to tell him something he'd said? Shouldn't he remember saying whatever it was that upset her so much? Unless he'd said something while he was sick, but she had to know he had been delirious at the time and to disregard anything he said.

Draco gave the waiting girl a last look before putting his face in the pensive.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**A/N: *wails* I'm going soft! I'm going to have to blow someone up or something to offset all of the fluffy stuff... (insert car chase here). Look at the fluff... It's like a marshmallow or something.**

**On a less insane note, this story is now bigger than the first one, in both chapters and words, it's all very exciting! This is the third last chapter, there isn't going to be an epilogue on this story because the epilogue of the first story still applies to this one and it would be confusing with the two of them.**

**I've managed to capture some of the elusive spare time this weekend! I'm all caught up on my readings and more than halfway through next week's readings, so I've been working on this story. I'm almost done writing it!**

**I've been asked how far along Narcissa is with her pregnancy, and I'm thinking 5 months ish... I know the moodiness lessens later on, but let's pretend I don't...**

**~Frosty**

_Last Chapter:_

_Draco gave the waiting girl a last look before putting his face in the pensive._

He grew more and more horrified by what he saw there. If he hadn't been watching it with his own eyes, Draco wouldn't have believed that he said such mean things while he was feverish. Maybe he would have been capable of it last year, but that was before he realized that Hermione actually had feelings and he was hurting them by being a prat.

When the memory was finally finished, Draco looked up at Hermione, who had moved across the room and faced away from him as he had been reliving the incident through her eyes in the pensive. "Hermione..." He started, but then paused. What could he say that would make everything all right again?

"I'm sorry, I was sick and didn't know what I was saying – I _definitely _didn't mean any of it," he tried, maybe this would be one of those simple misunderstandings that could be quickly cleared up and put behind them.

She turned around a looked at him for a long moment. "You promise you didn't mean it?" she asked in a small voice. Draco was pleased; maybe it would be easily cleared up.

"I do." He said honestly as he watched her debate whether to forgive him or not. "Now stop being so insecure, it's un-Hermione-like," he told her sternly – he was only half joking, since when was she so easily upset by the things he said?

She scowled at him, but didn't move to murder him, so he assumed that all was forgiven. "Does this mean you're willing to consider coming to my house to make pies with my insane mother?" He asked her as they walked down the stairs.

"Of _course_ she's going with you," her mother said from the bottom of the stairs. She held out the cans of pie filling she'd found in the kitchen for Draco to take.

He hesitantly accepted them as he nodded his thanks; he still didn't trust them, but knew from experience that they made delicious pies.

"Mother," Hermione started to object, but was cut off.

"Have fun dear," her mum told her as she pushed her arguing daughter towards the fireplace. She watched her expectantly until Hermione took a handful of floo powder and threw it into the fire, glancing at Draco to make sure she was still going to Malfoy manor – it would be really awkward to show up there and find out they were staying at a summer home or something. Draco nodded to her, understanding that she was making sure of her destination.

"Malfoy Manor," she said clearly as she stepped into the fire – this trip had the potential to go horribly, horribly wrong. Rather a lot of potential actually.

When she came out on the other side, she was greeted by a happy squeal. "Lucius, look, she's here!" Hermione stepped out of the fireplace to make room for Draco and looked at the two elder Malfoys sitting on the sofa in the sitting room into which she had been spit out by the floo network.

"I see her, Cissa. Now sit back down before you scare the girl away and I have to listen to you complaining about how you're craving muggle pies," Mr. Malfoy told his wife as Draco came out of the fire with the cans of pie filling.

Hermione's eyes widened as she caught sight of Mrs. Malfoy, she was desperately trying to hide the shock she was feeling. Narcissa Malfoy was _huge_.

"Careful what you say, she's hormonal and dangerous," Draco whispered to her out of the corner of his mouth when he saw the surprise on Hermione's face. Luckily for her, Hermione was used to dealing with pregnant women – she had a _lot_ of aunts on both sides of her family that seemed to all get pregnant in the last few years.

"You look radiant, Mrs. Malfoy," she said with a smile.

Draco and his father watched as Narcissa didn't murder their guest, they were in shock that someone said something to her that didn't end in tears or anger. "Don't look at me like that, you're just a moron when it comes to the things you say," Hermione whispered back to Draco when she caught sight of the look on his face. It seemed he had inherited this trait from his father if his matching look of surprise was anything to go on.

"Thank you. Now... Can I call you Hermione?" Hermione nodded. "Okay. Hermione, shall we get started on the muggle pies?" Narcissa asked her.

Hermione glanced at Draco and took the pie filling from him; he seemed relieved that he wasn't required to help with the baking of them this time.

"Umm, Mrs. Malfoy..." Hermione started; the woman was wearing something completely inappropriate for baking. It was like she was trying to make Hermione feel comfortable by wearing something muggle, but had chosen the outfit from the pages of Vogue instead of a more appropriate muggle magazine that involved aprons and actual _baking_.

"Please, call me Cissa," she requested. Hermione wasn't sure she could do that, it was weird to call someone so imposing by something so informal that it not only didn't have a title in front of it, but it wasn't even her full first name.

"Okay, um... Cissa. I'm not sure your outfit is going to work for baking," she hesitantly told the older woman, worried that the female Malfoy would be upset by what she had said.

Draco had been watching his father throughout the exchange between the women, and he had looked absolutely horrified when Narcissa suggested that Hermione call her Cissa, but he seemed relieved that someone else was there to bear the brunt of the pregnant woman's attention, so he slunk off to his study where he could pretend there wasn't a muggleborn in his house.

Father seemed to have the a good idea, so Draco slunk away as well; if anyone could manage his mother, it seemed that it was going to be Hermione. Besides, she was a Gryffindor; she lived to do stupid things like stay near his mother when she attempted to do household things like cooking. The poor elves had practically gone on strike the last time she had wanted cookies in the middle of the night and had attempted to make them herself – the entire kitchen had needed to be remodelled once the fire was out.

Hermione followed as Narcissa happily led the way to the kitchen, she watched the disapproving looks the painting they were passing sent her way, but ignored them – she even stuck her tongue out at one particularly crotchety looking old man with an extra nasty scowl on his face.

"That's the spirit dear," Cissa said proudly, startling her. Hermione blushed at being caught acting like a child, but was oddly flattered that Narcissa thought well of her.

"Here we are!" The older woman said proudly, opening a thick wooden door to reveal the kitchen. It was mostly a normal – albeit very large – wizard kitchen, but one corner of the huge room seemed to have state of the art muggle appliances. How they got electricity here was something Hermione wasn't even going to bother pondering.

Halfway through the surprisingly uneventful making of the pastry, Hermione realized something: one of their cans of 'pie filling' was actually a can of diced tomatoes. How had her mother missed that when she was getting it? The cans looked similar, but a quick glance would have revealed it wasn't what they had thought it was. "Oh no, we're not going to have enough filling," Hermione said sadly; she didn't want disappoint Narcissa, the woman had seemed so excited about the pies.

"That's all right, I can just cast a duplicating charm on it when we get to that part," Narcissa said cheerily as she swiped at some flour off of her nose. Hermione nodded approvingly, that was a good idea – she was so immersed in the muggle baking that a magical solution hadn't even occurred to her.

"Can I ask you something?" Hermione said suddenly a while later as they were put the pastry in the pie tins.

"Of course."

"Doing this the muggle way, aren't you worried about..." She hesitated, trying to think of the right word.

"A scandal?" Narcissa asked her. Hermione nodded enthusiastically, that was just the word she had been looking for.

"Sweetie, everything's scandalous here, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen – it just means you don't talk about it with the neighbours." She told her, patting Hermione's cheek and leaving a flour handprint there.

Hermione laughed, if Narcissa was an average pureblood, then they weren't as bad as she would have thought – disregarding the whole death eater thing.

"Okay! Time for the filling," Narcissa said excitedly, moving the one can of strawberry filling they had. Hermione watched as she waved her wand and muttered an incantation, and then there was an explosion.

* * *

Draco retreated to his room while the women did their baking, only to find Blaise lounging on his bed. He made a quick mental not to block the fireplace in his room – it was best to not let Blaise sneak up on him, because he always seemed to be doing something embarrassing when it happened.

"A little bird told me that Granger's here," Blaise said with a grin. "I thought I'd drop in and see how she was doing."

"No, you thought you'd drop in and annoy me."

Blaise shrugged. "Same thing. So tell me, are you thrilled to have her talking to you again?" He looked concerned for a second before asking seriously "She _is_ talking to you again right? Your mother didn't make you kidnap her or something?"

Draco took a minute to seriously contemplate what would happen if Blaise went missing – he wasn't going to kill him, just strand him on a desert island with no means of escape or something else equally satisfying. "_Yes_ she's talking to me again. I'm not _thrilled_, I'm merely glad," he clarified – Malfoys were rarely allowed to be openly thrilled about anything. He chose to ignore the last question altogether.

"Oh please, Draco. Think about it; you've been letting Hermione get away with anything and you're miserable when you see her upset. Not to mention you've been missing her horribly since she's been ignoring you, haven't you?" Blaise asked - he didn't need to, he knew the answer, but Draco needed a little push to realize he did.

Draco glared at his friend, but thought about it for a minute before nodding reluctantly; he _had_ kind of missed her...

"You love her," Blaise declared.

Draco sputtered for a second. He was willing to admit he had missed her, but did he love her? That was a bit of a leap, even for Blaise. Any retort he might have made was cut off by a loud explosion that shook the house.

"Why does this happen _every_ time mother decides to cook something?" He muttered as he rushed from the room, closely followed by an interested Blaise.

* * *

"What the hell is going on here!" A very loud voice demanded. Hermione sat up from where she had been knocked to the floor and looked around. Narcissa was fine; she had been shielded by the counter and hadn't even fallen down, but both she and Hermione were covered in strawberry rhubarb pie filling.

Draco rushed over to where Hermione was sitting on the floor looking dazed; he frantically looked her over everywhere to find where all of the blood was coming from. "Where are you hurt?" He demanded, hoping she would be able to shed some light on the problem.

Hermione watched him panic for a second before bringing her goo covered hand to her mouth and taking a long lick. Draco looked like he was about ready to pass out, why would someone want to _lick_ gore off?

"Try me, I'm really quite delicious," she told him, offering the other hand.

"Calm down Draco, it's just pie filling," Blaise called from the doorway – he didn't want to go inside in case he got some of the stuff on him, it looked like it would stain and he was wearing his favourite shirt.

"I knew that," Draco snapped at his annoying friend, having known no such thing, but refusing to admit that fact.

"So you've suddenly developed a deep connection with pastries to the point where you react the same to seeing their filling spilled as you would to blood?" Blaise asked.

Hermione and Narcissa burst out laughing at this, and Blaise decided it might be a good time to leave if the murderous look of Draco's face was anything to go on. He waved goodbye to Mrs. Malfoy and Hermione, then fled the room, making sure to nod to Mr. Malfoy as he passed him - he was probably on his way to investigate the noise in the kitchen as well, but had been farther away than they had been.

When he first entered the room, Lucius had the same immediate reaction as his son had – assuming someone had blown up and splattered a mess everywhere. Unlike Draco however, Lucius had the advantage of noticing the laughing faces of the people in the room and decided that it was probably something significantly less serious than he had originally assumed. "Come Narcissa, let's get you cleaned up," he directed his wife, walking into the room and leading her out by putting her hand on the small of her back and escorting her.

"Draco, take Hermione to one of the guest rooms so she can clean herself up," his mother ordered over her shoulder, still laughing.

A house elf popped into existence beside the pair still sitting on the floor. "Master Draco, should Lolly clean this up now?" She asked, looking horrified as she took in the mess of her kitchen.

"Before you do Lolly, would you mind taking the contents of those two cans and finishing the pies Mrs. Malfoy and I started? She really wanted to eat them," Hermione asked, indicating the two identical and open cans of pie filling that were sitting unharmed on the counter. It seemed that Narcissa had somehow managed to get the results she had wanted, but also somehow manage to duplicate the pie filling all over the room... and made an explosion in the process. But then, it was magic, and magic could be finicky.

The elf nodded enthusiastically, Narcissa was always good to her and never gave her enough chances to do things for her. "Yes miss!" She said happily as Hermione unstuck herself from the floor and stood up.

"You were going to show me to a guest room?" She asked him, snapping him out of the trance he seemed to be in as he stared at her.

He shook his head to clear it – now that he knew it wasn't something gross she was covered in, he kind of wanted to try it. That impulse was most likely going to get him in trouble, so he shook his head once more and lead the way out of the kitchen.

Hermione walked along beside him in slightly awkward silence, they hadn't spoken to each other in months and now suddenly she wasn't sure how she was supposed to deal with him again. Were they going to go back to hesitant friends or the... slightly more they had come to be before Draco got sick?

Unbeknownst to her, Draco was having almost identical thoughts. But unlike Hermione, he was mainly focused on how delicious she would be flavoured with pie filling.

Abruptly, Draco decided to not worry about how she might react and find out if she would actually taste as delicious as he imagined. He used speed he hadn't needed since his last quidditch game to swipe her hair to the side and lick her cheek. Mmmm, he had been right.

Hermione froze and stared at Draco in shock. "Did you just lick me?" Well, she wasn't hitting him, but that would probably begin once the shock wore off.

It was Draco's turn to be surprised when, instead of hitting him, she kissed him. If this was going to be her new form of retaliation, he was all for it – in fact, he might act out more often.

"What brought this on?" He murmured between kisses as Hermione leaned against him and he held her tight to make sure she couldn't escape if she had another rapid mood swing.

"You licked me." She told him as if that answered the question. She saw his look of confusion and elaborated. "Friends don't _lick_ friends, so I figured we were back to being... Slightly more than friends?" She told him, her voice going up at the end in a question. His answer was another kiss.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

**A/N: Spell check says intimidatingly isn't a word, I say it is and spell check should let me add suffixes to suit my needs whenever I want. *rightclickignore* If it really bothers anyone, you can cover it up and pretend it's a different word... But you should think of one that ends in 'ly' because I like the flow of the l between that and the l in large and you should keep that going.**

**When I wrote the first half of this chapter, my head was hurting so much that the pattern on the carpet was making me nauseous... It was just so **_**swirly**_**. Not sure why I had a migraine, but then they've never needed a reason to visit. Anyway! On to the point; it **_**may**_** have affected my writing... It's hard to tell.**

**Also, this one's a little short, but I had to stop it there, but this one's early, so I hope it makes up for it a little bit. This is the second last chapter, the last one is written, but it **_**needs**_** something and I can't figure out what it is, which is bothering me... I'll wrestle with it and see if I can figure it out within a reasonable timespan.**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed, etc! You guys are the best!**

**~Frosty**

Hermione suddenly spun out of Draco's hold and continued in the direction they had been heading before their little interlude. "This stuff is starting to get _itchy_, I need to get cleaned up," she told him.

A smirk spread across Draco's face. "I could help you –" He was interrupted when she smacked him playfully. A long suffering sigh escaped him and he led her towards one of the guest rooms. Fine, she could get clean the _boring_ way; by herself.

As she had expected, the room Draco had led her to was lavish and tasteful, much like the rest of the manor. All in all, the entire place was remarkably un-sinister; it would almost be welcoming if it wasn't so intimidatingly large. She stood in the doorway for a second to take in the room while Draco hovered behind her and peeked over her head.

"Is something wrong with the room?" He asked, not understanding why she was taking so long to go in.

"No, it's just... Huge," she answered, finally entering.

He followed her. "Shower's in there," he told her, indicating one of the doors on the far wall.

She strode across the plush carpet and opened the door he had indicated to discover an equally exuberant bathroom. "Nice try," she said with a grin as Draco tried to get into the room with her when she shut the door.

He frowned for a second before shrugging; it had been worth a try. "Dinner will be in an hour, mother will have the elves lay out something for you to wear and I'll come pick you up," he called over his should as he left, pausing only to hear the confirmation that she'd heard him.

After a quick shower, Hermione carefully peeked around the door to make sure Draco wasn't lurking in her room, waiting to see her in a towel – and what a towel it was, it was soft and fluffy and absorbent, something that was surprisingly difficult to find in a towel of late.

Having found the room vacant, she entered and made her way to the incredibly soft looking bed. There was something that _resembled_ clothing sitting on it, presumably waiting for her. She scowled at the article she was hesitant to call clothing, but started to put it on – it would do her no good if she were to offend her hosts.

A knock on the door sounded shortly after she had finished fixing her hair into something that looked like it belonged on a human instead of something that might have belonged in a topiary garden – a topiary garden with explosion themed shapes.

"Come in," she called, doubled checking herself in the mirror to make sure there weren't any hairs she missed – they liked to randomly spring out of whatever style she put them in, probably out of spite because she wasn't letting them do whatever they wanted.

She glanced at Draco as he came into the room, and then did a bit of a double take at the formal robes he was wearing; they looked _good_. "Is this sufficiently formal?" She enquired, looking down doubtfully at her outfit, it was some sort of frilly concoction from hell that was much too tight around the waist for her to be comfortable in and much too low in the neckline for her to be able to bend over. The whole thing was just impractical and uncomfortable.

"You look beautiful," Draco told her honestly; the dress was perfect for her, he was having trouble remembering why he was here in the first place, she kept distracting him.

Hermione looked at him skeptically, "I'm wearing a doily."

"And you wear it so well, now shush and come downstairs," he told her, offering his elbow to her so he could escort her properly.

Dinner consisted of Narcissa exclaiming happily over how wonderful Hermione looked and then monopolising the conversation for the rest of the meal with her talk of the pies they were going to be having for dessert.

When said pies finally did arrive, an awkward silence fell over the remaining three – Narcissa was in her own little world once she served herself an entire half of one of the pies and then set to work on it, daintily picking up her dessert fork to neatly consume her pastry.

Everyone else at the table chose to take a more modest portion and busied themselves with it in order to avoid attempting to come up with conversations topics to fill the silence.

Draco finished his pie and stood from his seat, glancing at his father for permission. "You're excused," Lucius told him with a wave of dismissal; he was obligated to sit with his wife until she was finished eating, but there was no point forcing Draco to join them, besides, when the boy left, he'd take the muggleborn with him, which suited Lucius just fine.

He grabbed Hermione's arm and pulled her from the room. "What do you want to do now?" He asked her once they were in the hallway outside of the dining room.

"I want to get out of this dress," she said, wiggling around and wincing when it pinched her. She looked at Draco and saw the expression he was wearing. "Not like _that_!" She snapped; storming off in the direction she had originally come down to get to the dining room.

Draco chuckled at her antics, taking her elbow and turning her around. "Your room is _this _way," he informed the flustered brunette, leading the way back to her room.

She once again shut the door on him, but this time it was her bedroom door. The dress was an evil thing to take off, but with the assistance of magic, she managed to do it on her own. "I'm done," she called in the direction of the door once she had put the clothes that had been previously covered in pie filling back on – the house elves had done a remarkable job getting all of it out, it should have stained.

Whatever Draco had been planning on saying when he came in the room was interrupted by a big yawn from Hermione. "Mother insists you stay the night, she said she's already cleared it with your mother," he told her as he handed her the overnight bag her mum must have sent over for her.

"Thanks," she said with a genuine smile. There was a brief pause before she kissed him on the cheek. "Night," she added.

Draco gave her a smile. "My room's just down the hall if you need anything," he informed her; his lecherous grin let her know he was only partly being a good host.

Hermione saved herself from answering by shutting the door on him. Great, now she had to change _again_. And she'd just finished too.

The next morning, Draco groaned a little before blinking his eyes open, his body telling him that it was much too early to be awake. "Ahh!" He yelled once his eyes were focused, Hermione was kneeling on the edge of his bed, literally nose to nose with him as he slept.

"Oh good, you're up," she said cheerfully as if she wasn't the cause of his current conscious state.

"Bloody hell! Are you trying to kill me?"

"No, but I'm hungry and not about to go face your parents alone, so get up!" Hermione urged, whacking him with a pillow when he didn't move fast enough. Before he could wake his poor brain up enough to retaliate, Hermione was up off of the bed and out the door, waiting for him to get dressed and come after her.

She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall in the hallway when Draco found her a few minutes later, after throwing some clothes on. "Shall we then?" He mumbled, offering his arm again and checking his watch – it was seven, so the elves were most likely finished cooking breakfast already.

Hermione happily took his arm and let him lead the way – this place was _huge_ and she was _starving_, not the time to try and figure out a route to the dining room in this labyrinth.

"Someone's up early," Narcissa said as the younger pair entered the dining room.

"I don't want to talk about it," Draco muttered, still not fully awake and not happy about his semi conscious state – he would _much_ rather be back in bed. Hermione smiled pleasantly and started eating her breakfast.

"Your mother said you had some sort of appointment this afternoon, so you have to be home soon," Narcissa informed Hermione.

After thinking about what kind of appointment she could possibly have, Hermione groaned – the only type of appointment her parents didn't inform her she had were dentist appointments; if she knew about them ahead of time, she would 'accidently' plan to be busy that day. "Dentist appointment?" She asked, hoping she as wrong and then sighing when Narcissa confirmed her suspicions with a nod.

"What do these 'dentist appointments' entail?" Lucius asked, breaking the silence he had been maintaining in the presence of their muggle born visitor.

"Well, as far as I'm aware, I don't have any cavities, so they're just going to clean my teeth," Hermione informed him.

"And if you did have a 'cavity'?"

"Well, they'd take a drill and dig it out before filling in the hole again with special filling stuff," she explained, keeping the explanation simple.

All three purebloods at the table looked horrified. "They _dig_ in your mouth? That's barbaric!" Draco said, sounding disgusted.

"It's really not that bad, they numb the area first, so you don't feel anything," Hermione tried to explain.

"This has happened to you before?" Draco asked; looking even more horrified – if that was even possible. Hermione sighed; apparently trying to explain had been a bad idea, she should have just gone with 'teeth healers' as an explanation and saved her poor audience the trauma.

"Only once," she told him, pointing to the one filling she had.

"There's nothing there," Draco said, leaning forward to closely examine the spot she had indicated.

"There is, but the stuff they used is white, so you can't see it," she explained. The looks on the faces of her breakfast companions were still horrified, but she couldn't think of any way to explain it that would make it sound any less disturbing and barbaric – most likely because it _was_ disturbing and barbaric.

She grabbed Draco's wrist and looked at the time. "I should be going now, my parents like to give me a pre-check-up check-up so that's I don't make them look bad in front of their colleagues or something equally stupid and pointless," she stopped there before her sentence became a rant. Standing up, she smiled at the older Malfoys. "Thanks for having me," she told them before walking out of the room.

"Thank you for helping me with the pies, dear," Narcissa called after her. Lucius didn't say anything, which was actually an improvement on the insults he would have thrown after her in the recent past.

Draco followed her out of the room and made sure she made it to one of the sitting rooms with a fireplace hooked up to the floo network. "Goodbye, I guess," he said to her, suddenly awkward again. She smiled and waved, before grabbing a handful of the floo powder.

"Hermione, wait!" He said suddenly, knowing he was going to regret it if he just let her _leave_. She stepped out of the fireplace and turned to face him, waiting with a questioning look on her face. "Would you like to, go... With me, that is-"

"Would you like to go out with me sometime?" She asked him, putting him out of his misery. He grinned, relieved.

"I'd love to."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

**A/N: It's kind of sad to be finished this one after almost two months of it taking up a huge portion of my spare time *tear*. I figured it out faster than I thought I would, so here's the ending! I actually figured it our ten minutes before I had to leave for class, which was annoying because I had to make sure I didn't forget while I was at school.**

**Remember that this story is filling in the gap between the last chapter of A Tail Changes Everything and the epilogue, I'm posting the original epilogue at the end of this chapter in case you want a refresher, but are too lazy to go find the other story in my profile. Also remember that the original epilogue was written before this one, I think my writing's changed a little bit since then... At least, I like to think I've improved a **_**little**_** bit at least. There also might be some small discrepancies between the last chapter of this one and the epilogue, but it's been a while since I wrote A Tail Changes Everything, and it's hard to keep all the little details straight... So you can pretend they don't exist or tell me and I'll fix them.**

**Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me for these two stories, and special thanks to all the people who've reviewed! You guys are the best. I have four stories I've started, don't worry, they're not **_**too**_** serious, I'm not really capable of that... So keep a look out for them!**

**~Frosty**

After the whole pie episode at the manor, Hermione had been giving a lot of thought to what she was going to do with the rest of her life – heavily influenced by her mother. She concluded that spending time at a muggle university was a waste of money when she refused to give up magic and wanted a career as a witch. Her mother was greatly disappointed, but eventually her father talked her around into allowing Hermione to get a flat in wizarding London and to accept a job offer from the ministry in the control and regulation of magical creature department.

"Hermione!" Ginny snapped from where she was sitting on her friend's bed, watching as she desperately tried to find something formal enough to wear on her date with Draco. "Just wear something comfortable, it's not like he's taking you anywhere, he's coming over to watch movies!" She tried to remind the insane brunette; her and Draco had been dating for months and Hermione _still_ didn't really know how to act around him. It was cute really, in an annoying way.

She watched fondly as Hermione opened the door and kissed Draco thoroughly before heading towards the fireplace. "They're like Romeo and Juliette" Ginny said with a happy sigh, glancing over her shoulder at them.

"Except he's snarky with an ego that won't fit in normal sized rooms and she's more likely to kill him than herself," George said, walking up behind her. He had come to retrieve his wayward sister from Hermione's house before she decided it would be a good idea to date a Slytherin as well – that and his mum had ordered him to since it was dinnertime.

Ginny grinned at her brother – the only one who seemed to be aware that Hermione and Draco were dating. "They're such a good match though," she said as she threw the floo powder into the fireplace to floo home.

* * *

Meanwhile, Draco was trying to work up the courage to ask Hermione a very important question. "Hermione, have you ever done anything possibly insane and hugely spontaneous?" He asked her; watching as she tried to figure out where he was going with this.

"Nothing major... My possibly insane actions are usually well planned." She told him hesitantly, still unsure what his point was.

"Would you like to?"

She paused for a moment to think over the possible things he could have in mind. "Why not? You're always telling me I need to be more spontaneous..."

"Good," he grinned at her. "Marry me," he asked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the beautiful ring he had asked his mother for the night before – it was a Malfoy tradition for the Malfoy heir to have that ring for the next Malfoy bride.

She stared at him in shock for a second – that wasn't one of the things she had thought he might have had in mind. Was he serious? He probably was – it's not like any part of their relationship really made sense before this, so why should it make any sense now? Draco was starting to look a little bit nervous, so Hermione took pity on him and smiled.

"Sure, why not," she told him nonchalantly. He gave her the biggest smile she had ever seen on his face and swept her up in a hug, lifting her up and spinning her around in his excitement. They were both laughing and out of breath by the time he set her down again. He slipped the ring on her finger and they watched as it resized itself to fit her perfectly.

"What do your parents think about this?" She asked him when reality set in a few seconds later.

Draco shrugged, "Mother's okay with it; father's not, but he's not going to complain and risk mum's wrath at the moment." It was true too, Lucius was going out of his way to make Narcissa happy, most likely because he felt that she had recently popped a human being out of her, and magic didn't really make it any easier for witches than it was for muggle women.

"Are _your_ parents going to be okay with this?" He asked her, thinking of her father and cringing a little bit at the reaction he imagined the man would have when he heard the news.

"Are you kidding? Mum's had my wedding dress picked out since you stayed over after your stint in jail, and dad won't be happy about it, but he likes you better than he liked Ron, so he'll probably warm to you... Eventually." She snickered, remembering how poor Ron had been trembling in a corner while Harry tried to make awkward conversation – and that had only been when she introduced them to him as her friends.

The thought of her friends made her realize what their reaction might be when they discovered that Draco was going to be a permanent fixture in her life – and if they wanted her to remain in theirs, he would be a permanent fixture there too.

Draco kissed her, holding her tightly. "It's not too late for you to find a nice, normal girl," Hermione informed him, reminding him what he was getting into. He still had time to marry someone like Pansy, who didn't come with all that baggage in the form of a hoard of ginger haired Weasleys and an over-protective boy who lived.

"Not even slightly interested," he responded, kissing her on the tip of her nose before moving on to her mouth. They eventually retired to the bedroom, still with their large smiles on their faces.

* * *

"Hermione!" She shifted in her sleep – stupid, annoying voices, shouting at her all outraged first thing in the morning... Wait. She opened her eyes to see a very angry Harry Potter standing in the doorway. His face was a lovely shade of scarlet, between his green eyes and red face; he looked rather Christmas-y.

Why was Harry so angry with her so early in the morning? A pale arm snaked around her waist and pulled her closer, while there was a grumbling sound from behind her – something about it being 'too early for whatever hell was attempting to break loose'. Oh. That might be what had Harry so angry. Hermione closed her eyed and scrunched up her face in mortification, groaning – this had to be the worst way for Harry to find out.

Draco heard her groan and finally deigned to open his eyes. "Potter, you look like you're going to pop," he informed Harry, not sounding entirely displeased by the idea.

"You, her... Bed. That's – WHY?" Harry managed to sputter, not capable of coherent sentences at the moment.

"Relax Potter, finding me in her bed is the _least_ of your worries at the momen-" Hermione opened her eyes again and slapped her hand over the evil blond's mouth, she was starting to underst and the implications of being with someone who took pleasure in upsetting her friends.

"Hermione, what's he talking about?" Harry asked his friend slowly, watching as Malfoy struggled to get her hand off of his mouth – he was obviously eager to say whatever it was, meaning Harry _really_ wasn't going to like it.

Draco finally got fed up grappling with the determined brunette; he flipped himself on top of her and pinned her down before looking to Potter. He didn't say anything, but he pulled her left hand up to show Potter the ring, hoping that the daft Gryffindor would manage to piece it together.

"Malfoy, what do you think you're doing to her?" Harry demanded. Apparently, Draco had been overestimating how observant the moron was. To be fair – and he would never admit this out loud – it probably looked like he was practicing some strange martial art on his fiancé, so it wasn't all that ridiculous that scar-head didn't notice the large rock adorning her hand.

"I _was_ sleeping with my fiancé before you came storming in here and woke me up," Draco complained. Now Harry had something new to change colours and sputter about.

Hermione gave up grappling with her annoying fiancé and kicked him in the stomach – she was mad enough to kick him elsewhere, but she had her future children to worry about – she had to stop this nonsense before this little run-in got out of hand and someone got cursed.

While Draco was rolling around and holding his stomach with no modesty whatsoever – he didn't seem to care that he was rolling around the bed completely naked – Hermione pulled the sheet up to her chin and turned to Harry. "Would you mind waiting to have this conversation? I'd feel better if I had some clothing on..." She asked him. Harry nodded stiffly and left the room.

"He's your friend, you go explain our engagement to him," Draco said once he could breathe again. He was pouting because he hadn't had the dramatic confrontation he had been hoping for and being a poor sport about it.

Hermione glared at him the entire time she was getting dressed, but she was pretty sure it didn't had the effect on him she had been going for; in order for a glare to be effective, the other person needs to look at your eyes, and Draco's had been directed... _lower_ than her eyes – namely, her arse. Hermione huffed as she left the room, then grinned evilly as she thought of something.

"Draco?" She called from the hallway as she walked towards the living room where Harry was waiting.

"What?"

"You're telling Blaise," she called; smiling when she heard the muffled swearing from the other room. She took a minute to revel in her small victory – she had been right when she assumed he'd kept this from Blaise, probably because Blaise would have teased him relentlessly for going soft and then make Draco take him to the hospital when he finally managed to annoy Draco to the point where he was hexed by the blond. She took a big breath before she went to face the music, so to speak.

"Tell me that was some elaborate joke concocted by Malfoy to mess with my head," Harry begged, knowing it was a lie – Hermione would never consent to a naked Malfoy in her bed for joking purposes. Harry cringed when he realized the reason Hermione had had a naked Malfoy in her bed.

Besides, she had seemed just as determined to keep him from knowing what Malfoy was trying to tell him as Malfoy had been to say it, meaning it _had_ to be true. Hermione was really going to marry the blond prat.

"It's true, we're going to get married," she told him, not able to help the little smile that broke out at the thought. She paled as something occurred to her, "you're not allowed to tell Ginny, she'll kill me if she finds out that you knew before her."

"That he knew what?" Ginny asked, coming out of the fireplace. As soon as she had brushed all of the soot off of her robes, Ginny froze and squealed at a pitch that was high enough that only dogs and birds could hear easily. Harry and Hermione recoiled in horror, wondering if something was wrong with the hyperactive redhead.

"Hermione! is-that-what-I-think-it-is-on-your-finger?" Ginny rushed out in one breath once she was done squealing.

Realizing what all the fuss is about, Hermione grinned hugely and showed off her new ring. Ginny whipped around and faced Harry, remembering she was here to find him. "Harry James Potter, you better not be ruining this happy day for Hermione!" She said, looking menacing, she had obviously been practicing, probably with the help of her mother if her scolding style was anything to go on. She was also disturbingly good at reading situations to know that Harry was giving Hermione a hard time about her future husband from all of ten seconds taking in the situation.

Harry lost his angry look and replaced it with a fake smile. "Of course not," he told his fiery girlfriend, obviously more worried about his health and that of his own relationship than he was about Hermione's marital status.

"Good!" Ginny said. "Mum wants you to come to our Weasley dinner tonight, you can tell everyone there!" She told Hermione cheerily, taking another look at the ring and pulling Harry towards the fireplace with an excited bounce in her step.

"Oh! And bring Malfoy!" She yelled over her shoulder, smiling when she heard a string of profanities come from the direction of the bedroom.

* * *

Hermione walked up to the doors of the Burrow and paused, glancing over at the blonde, standing slightly behind her. "Draco," she whispered, looking worried. "They outnumber us."

He just smirked confidently at her and took her hand. "We can take them."

Hermione wasn't so confident, but she was willing to give it a try... She had done things much more terrifying than facing her friends and telling them she was going to spend the rest of her life with someone they hated – probably. She had to have done _something_ scarier than this. Right?

She took a big breath and knocked on the door, glancing at Draco as she did for reassurance once again.

Remarkably enough, Ginny's reaction had been a higher pitched version of the one her mother had when she heard the news, the rest of the Weasleys went along with their matriarch – save for Ron, but he'd come around eventually; if the woman who made his food was mad at him, his mealtimes would suffer, and after that it was only a matter of time until he caved.

* * *

Hermione and Draco were spending their last night as an unmarried couple together before they went their separate ways and got ready for their big day in the morning.

"Are you nervous?" Hermione asked Draco as she plopped down beside him on the couch and offered him the second coffee she was holding.

"No," he answered immediately, sipping the coffee. Hermione smiled happily as she snuggled close; the feeling was mutual.

"Wait!" Hermione turned to the suddenly panicked Draco with a concerned look.

"What's wrong?" She asked him, reaching for his hand. He dodged her and looked at her with a horrified expression.

"I can't marry you!" He said, near hysterical. Hermione felt her stomach drop somewhere in the vicinity of her feet.

"Why?" She asked in a quiet voice; this better not be anything stupid or she was going to hex him into next week.

"Because your grandmother is going to be there!" He said, looking around the room as if her grandmother was going to jump out from behind a piece of furniture and try to grab his arse or some such thing. Yep, it was stupid. He was dead.

Hermione turned and left the room with Draco trailing worriedly behind her; she was mad, she could do any number of evil things. Still, his fear of her grandmother being there was a genuine one.

He watched as Hermione picked up the phone and pressed a bunch of the numbers – he had learned how to work the remote for the television, but had yet to grasp how a sequence of numbers could bring the voice of the person you wanted to talk to right to your ear without magic. There was a pause while Hermione waited for someone to pick up on the other end.

"Hello, Grandma?" She asked, watching with an evil grin as Draco paled. "If I could somehow magically manage to get you a plane ticket out here, would you like to come to my wedding?" She asked. Draco had to sit down; he was starting to feel faint. "Okay, I'll see you there!" Hermione chirped happily.

"Granger, what have you done?" Draco growled; his pale complexion and horrified expression completely ruining his threatening tone. He reverted to her surname, realizing that he wasn't going to be able to truthfully call her that for much longer.

"Well, grandma wasn't going to be able to come to the wedding, something about all the planes near her being grounded because of some kind of threat. Then I realized that I can just use magic to get her here, all I have to do is tell her I'm a witch, I think she suspects anyway, you were never quite normal enough to fool muggles," she told him; grinning at the insulted look on his face – Draco didn't like it when people told him he didn't do something well.

"I'll show you normal," he muttered, walking into the kitchen and pulling the toaster out of one of the cupboards. She watched with amusement as he made a slice of toast, only burning it a little bit.

When it finally popped, he pulled it out and waved it in her face. "I just made toast! Who's not muggle-like now?" He demanded, poking her with the toast.

"Still you," Hermione told him as she brushed off the crumbs that had been transferred onto her shirt when he poked her. "Stop that," she snapped when he poked her again and continued to do it when he saw how much it annoyed her.

Eventually, Hermione, tired of being assaulted with toast, snatched it from him and threw the abused piece of toast into the trash. "There, I win," she proclaimed.

"You can't just steal my toast and say you win!" Draco complained.

"You can't just attack me with toast and expect there to be no retaliation," she responded.

Draco pouted a little bit; it was no fun to mess with her if she was going to ruin his fun and then claim she was the victor. He went over to the trash can to see if the toast was still usable as a weapon, but was distracted by a funny looking stick. "Hermione, what's the stick think with the plus sign in there?" He asked; both curious and determined to expand his knowledge of muggle things – he was going to learn so no one could tell him he didn't quite fit in with the muggles... If only father could hear him now, Draco would probably be disowned.

Hermione looked away and unconsciously put a hand on her stomach. "I wasn't going to tell anyone until we were back from our honeymoon," she said quietly.

Draco was still confused; how was this related to the little stick, and what was she going to tell him?

"What would you do if I were pregnant?" she asked him, still looking away. She was a little worried he was going to be upset, they were usually so careful, but there was that one time...

"I'd be happy that I would finally have an ally against you in our bread related fights," he told her, refusing to believe they weren't talking hypothetically. Besides, it was impossible that she was pregnant, they were careful; thought there was that one time...

"Oh please. Our child will always side with mummy," she informed him smugly.

"Just like you and your mum?" He asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Hermione huffed. "That's different, my mum's insane."

"And you're just the epitome of sanity?"

"I'm not the one who was just using _toast_ as a weapon!" She said defensively; grasping for a response. She was sane. She _was_.

Draco finally processed that she was serious about the baby thing. "You're serious aren't you? You're pregnant?" He asked.

Hermione nodded, hoping he was going to be okay with this; they were really young, but it wasn't like they could support a child financially, and wizards started families young. This was doable.

He took a big breath. "Okay, we can do this," he said more to himself than to her. Hermione smiled, hugely relieved – the wedding would be so much better without the worry about Draco's reaction weighing on her mind.

She hugged him. "Thank you for not freaking out," she told him gratefully.

"Oh, I'm freaking out, but I know once I'm finished I'll be excited about it. Can we wait until after the honeymoon to tell everyone?" He asked her; he didn't want to make people think they were getting married because she was pregnant. Hermione nodded; she had been thinking the same thing.

Together they went back to the couch so they could finish their quiet night before their big day.

**Epilogue**

"Draco!" Hermione called from the bathroom. He tried not to snicker as he went to see why she was calling him; he had a pretty good idea already. Peeking around the door, he found his annoyed Gryffindor glaring at him.

"Is there a reason my hair is fluorescent orange?" she asked him, trying to stay calm.

"Remember back in school when you and Blaise dyed my hair emerald green? I couldn't get my revenge then because we needed to get along to get those evil twins back! Well, now I have my revenge! That dye is permanent, by the way," as soon as he finished saying this, he ran away; they may be engaged, but she wasn't above hexing him when she was angry enough.

Draco was confused when she didn't come after him. He slowly crept to the bathroom door and peeked around the frame; he was shocked to find Hermione with her normal hair back. He could only stare in confusion.

When she noticed him a second later, Hermione grinned evilly. "The only way to get the dye out is to cut it off; so I did. Then I cast a growing charm on my hair to grow it back to normal." She patted his head as she walked past him into their room. "This is why you were only the second smartest in our year."

He scowled at her retreating back, turning to walk into the bathroom. "Always ruining my fun," he muttered, apparently not quite quiet enough.

"Oh, and Draco?" She said, before he felt a spell hit him right in the head. He heard her hysterical laughter as he got to the mirror and stared at himself, horrified. He had bunny ears. _Large_, white bunny ears.

"You always did think your bunny ears were sexy," she laughed, squeaking and running when he turned and came after her.

"You expect me to go to my own wedding with bunny ears? Think of the pictures!" He yelled as he chased her around the room.

"I don't care about the pictures!" She yelled back, dodging him as he tried to capture her coming around the sofa.

"You should, they're yours too!"

Hermione grinned at him as she got to the fireplace. When he caught up to her, she kissed him quickly on the cheek and then flooed to The Burrow, where Ginny was waiting with her numerous torture devices – things like eyelash curlers.

* * *

While Hermione was beautifying, Draco was sulking. Blaise had shown up with his normal hair as well.

When Draco had questioned him about it, Blaise gave him a funny look and said, "I cut it off and then grew it back with a hair growing charm," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, then he had made fun of Draco's bunny ears for half an hour before he helped him get rid of the things.

"Why did you have rabbit ears?" Blaise asked him when he was finally finished laughing and they were both dressed – with normal ears.

Draco ignored him – a skill he had developed out of necessity over the years, as he preened in front of the mirror. He was shocked once again over how much better he could look when he got all dressed up when he looked so good every day – perfection is a difficult thing to improve upon and he had done it.

"You've been in front of that mirror long enough to be getting ridiculous with your vain thoughts," Blaise told him dryly. "Now get your butt moving or your bride will be going down an isle with no groom at the end!" he ordered his friend as he herded him out of the room.

Draco frowned. "sexy butt Blaise, get my _sexy_ butt moving."

"I don't even want to know..." Harry muttered from the doorway. He had been sent to see what was holding up the groom, he and Ron were both in the wedding party and it was going to take all of them to keep this wedding on track – the bride and groom were prone to playing pranks on each other and everyone around them. Harry cringed as he thought about it; Ginny had been ready to murder Malfoy when Hermione told her what he had done to her hair that morning, you would think he had done something permanent.

With the cooperation of the entire wedding party, they managed to get the groom to the end of the isle and the bride to walk down it. The pair managed to do the vow part themselves; then it was time for cake.

* * *

Draco snuck up behind Hermione, she was eating her wedding cake and completely unsuspecting. He was pretty sure she was going to kill him for what he was about to do, but it would be totally worth it.

Hermione leaned close to her cake to examine a particularly pretty spun sugar flower, and that was when Draco struck. He quickly pushed her face into the cake, making sure she got it all over her face.

She was frozen in complete shock; she couldn't believe he had just done that.

When she managed to come out of her surprise enough to turn and glare at her soon to be dead husband, Hermione caught sight of Ginny, the person who had spent hours on her hair and makeup that was now ruined. She actually feared for Draco's life.

"_That's_ for squishing pie all over my face!" He told her triumphantly, not noticing his peril - Ginny was advancing on him.

Hermione got an idea and turned into her animagus form – a sparrow, and flew off into the sunset. Draco frowned after her; weren't they supposed to disappear into the sunset together? And shouldn't they at least wait until the cake was finished?

Something bounced off his head, distracting him from his musings. Draco glanced up into the tree above him to see a tiny bird pulling another acorn off of a branch, getting ready to throw it at him as well; she must have looped back when he wasn't looking and landed above him.

His eyes widened as he understood what his crafty bride wanted him to do, and there was no way she was going to get what she wanted. She bounced another acorn off of his head and he sighed, he'd been married for less than a day and he was already being bossed around – by a tiny bird no less. "You're going to be the death of me Granger... Malfoy," he told her with a grin.

Draco changed into his owl and flew up onto the tree branch beside her, giving her a look as if to ask 'what now'. She flew off of the branch and he followed, not wanting to be left behind with the wedding party, who were sure to tease him about the owl thing... And the she-weasel was looking particularly murderous this evening – though he wasn't sure why...

THE END (Again)


End file.
